


Blood and Chocolate

by shutuplouis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Werewolf Mates, harry as gabriel, louis as vivian, obviously, omega!Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 05:03:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 58,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3162269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutuplouis/pseuds/shutuplouis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis Tomlinson relishes the change, the sweet, fierce ache that carries him from boy to wolf. At sixteen, he is beautiful and strong, and all the young wolves are on his tail. But Louis still grieves for his dead father; his pack remains leaderless and in disarray, and he feels lost in the suburbs of Maryland. He longs for a normal life. But what is normal for a werewolf?</p><p>Then Louis falls in love with a human, a "meat-boy". Aiden is kind and gentle, a welcome relief from the squabbling pack. He's fascinated by the supernatural or unknown, and Louis longs to reveal himself to Aiden. Surely he would understand Louis and delight in the wonder of his dual nature, not fear him as an ordinary human would.</p><p>Louis divided loyalties are strained further when a brutal murder threatens to expose the pack.</p><p>~Basically I love this book and so I of course had to make it about Larry~</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any mistaken pronouns in reference to Louis. i did my best at being thorough.

_Ghost Moon_

Flames shot high, turning the night lurid with carnival light. Sparks took the place of stars. The century-old inn was a silhouette fronting hell, as everything Louis knew was consumed in fire.

Two figures broke from the smashed front door and ran toward the woods where he stood, their night-clothes smeared with soot, their faces white with terror. The person who pushed them out disappeared once more inside. Another window exploded.

Three of the cottages were in flames, too, and the barn. Horses screamed in terror as they were chased from the stables by a handful of teenage boys.

In the West Virginia hills, miles from the nearest town, they didn't expect a fire engine to arrive. Somewhere behind him a woman wailed and wailed. "They did it on purpose. They burned us out."

"Get her into one of the trucks," a male voice yelled. "I'm bringing the other car around."

"Watch out for snipers," a female voice called back. "They might be waiting to pick us off as we leave."

"Head for Maryland," Louis heard his mother say. "We'll meet at Rudy's." Louis felt a tug on his arm. His mother, Jay, stood panting beside him. "I put Aunt Persia in my car. Where's your father?" Now that she stood alone with her son, her voice rose high in panic.

"He went back in," Louis answered, his words roughened by smoke and tears. "With Harry and Bucky."

"Mark!" Jay started toward the building and Louis grabbed her and held on tight.

"No! You can't both be in there. I can't stand it."

Jay fought to get away, but at fifteen, Louis was her match. "You can't stop him," Louis said. "He swore to protect the pack."

"But I need to be beside him," Jay begged. "They're my people, too."

 _What have I done?_ Louis thought. If only he'd stopped the boys this might not have happened. If only he'd told his father they were out of control.

Figures came around the side of the house. Bucky led a slight young woman not much older than Louis. Harry held a shrieking bundle in his arms.

The fire roared its victory; then, with a crack as if a giant's spine had snapped, a central beam gave way,and the roof collapsed in a peacock tail of sparks and flame. "Daddy!" Louis screamed. But it was too late.

 

 

_May/June Next Year Midsummer Moon_

 

"Mom, you've been fighting again." Louis glared at his mother. Jay Tomlinson lolled in an easy chair, one long slim leg thrown over the arm. She refused to stop grinning. A gash in her cheek still bled slightly. "You look awful," Louis said.

"Yeah, but you should see the other bitch," Jay answered. She scratched her scalp luxuriously with both hands, tousling her thick dark hair.

Louis sighed and came over to dab at his mother's cheek with a tissue grabbed from the box on the coffee table. He would ruin her beautiful face. "Can't you and Astrid leave each other alone?" It had been like this ever since they'd moved here from West Virginia, over a year ago now. He hardly knew his mother anymore. "Can't you?" he repeated.

"Rafe called for you," Jay said, ignoring the question. Louis rolled his eyes. That was all he needed. Couldn't he take a hint?

Jay sat up and looked directly at her son. "I thought that's where you were, with Rafe and the others."

"No, I wasn't." He bristled at the thought. The five young males who were his only age-mates were likely to get the rest of the pack killed if they kept on going the way they were.

"So where were you?"

Louis turned to leave the room. Since when was his mother so worried about where he was?"Down by the river, at the rocks," he said over his shoulder.

"What were you doing there?"

"Nothing." As he left, Louis heard his mother growl softly in frustration. Why did Jay always have to bring up the Five? Couldn't she get it through her head that Louis didn't want to be with them?

The familiar knot in his gut formed hard and tight. The fire last year had been the Five's fault -- and Axel's. He slammed the door of his room. The inside face of the door was channeled with claw marks. He grew his nails and ripped another row.

Axel had to go and lose it and kill that girl.

Axel had been acting wilder and wilder last spring, and talking crazy stuff. He heard him and the Five boast about midnight visits to town where they stalked humans in the shadows and scared them silly. What they did sounded funny. Louis made them take him, too. But rumors started going around school. People were getting nervous. When Louis said maybe they should cool it. Axel and the Five only laughed at him.

Then Axel began to go off by himself, and something seemed wrong to him. He didn't talk as much. It drove Louis crazy.

 _I was half in love with Axel_ , Louis thought as he stripped off his leggings. _Rafe thought I was his omega but I would have dropped him in a second for Axel_. He sniffed in disgust. Caring for Axel made me stupid.

He'd seen their behavior spinning out of control, and he hadn't done a thing. He should have told his father what they'd been up to, even if that meant he'd be in trouble himself. But you didn't squeal on your friends, did you?

Then the night of the Valentine's dance Axel went to town alone and killed a girl in back of the school. Louis still felt the heat of anger when he thought of what Axek had done. He couldn't help thinking he killed for some petty reason, like the girl turned him down. And he could have had me, Louis thought bitterly.

He must have been changing back when a classmate saw him crouched over the body. Before Axel knew he was there, the boy took off and named him to the police.

The Five decided to help. They killed another girl while Axel was in jail. They didn't let Louis know their plans; they must have thought he'd object.And I would have, he thought, but he wasn't sure.

"How could a boy be covered in fur? How could a human inflict such wounds?" the family lawyer pleaded for Axel. The new killing while Axel was locked up proved there was a wild animal on the loose. Axel had merely discovered the body, then had panicked and run. The case was dismissed.

But someone from town believed the witness's tale of a wolf that turned into a boy, and late one night the inn and out buildings burst into flame in six different spots, and black acrid smoke hid the moon.

In the 1600s, his ancestors had fled from werewolf hysteria in France to the sparsely settled New World, and by the end of the century had settled in wild Louisiana. In nineteenth-century New Orleans the Verdun triplets broke the ban on human flesh and the pack moved in haste to West Virginia, where they were joined by the remnants of a German pack from Pennsylvania. Last year the forbidden appetite had won again, and the pack took flight from the hills that had been its home for one hundred years and arrived refugees in the Maryland suburbs -- five families plus assorted others crammed into Uncle Rudy's run-down Victorian house in Riverview. With luck, no one would follow them here; they could mark new trails.

The house on Sion Road had emptied out gradually as the others found jobs and places to stay, until it held only Louis, Jay, and Uncle Rudy. Louis had thought that by this time they would have made plans for the future, but now the whole pack seemed to be crazy, his mother included. With more than half of them dead, no one knew his or her place anymore. There was constant squabbling. Survival depended on their blending in while they organized and decided where they would move and settle for good, but at any moment the pack was likely to explode in a ball of flying fur. They needed a leader badly, but no one could agree who.

Blend in, he thought. If only I could.

Last summer he had hid in his room and slept mostly, and in the early hours of the morning, the time when wolf-kind come home to shed their pelts, Louis would hear his mother crying inconsolably by her open bedroom window for someone who would never come home again.

By the time his junior year started, however, Louis had begun eating almost regularly, and Jay had found herself a job as a waitress at Tooley's, a local dive. Gradually it wasn't so hard to make it through the day. Louis was no longer exhausted when he walked in the door at three-thirty, and the schoolwork began to make sense.

He started to look longingly at the groups of kids laughing together around the flagpole after school.

At first he thought, Why would I make friends with people who would kill me if they knew what I was? What if I give myself away? But the yearning continued. It was then he realized that he didn't know how to make friends.

He had always had the pack around him, the pack that now hid in their separate dens. There were always pack kids. He had never had to reach out for company, company was always there. The Five were still around, of course, but now he couldn't bear to be with them, and they could never be just his friends now, anyway. They all saw him as a mate -- be nice to one, and the others would sulk and snap. Fight, fight, fight, that's what paying attention to them meant.

I want other friends, he thought. But no one seemed to want him.

He stood in front of his closet mirror in his T-shirt and twisted this way and that. What's wrong with me? he wondered.

There was nothing the matter that he could see. He was short and curvy, like his mother, small waist, and curvy hips that showed clearly that he was omega. His skin was gently golden; it was always golden, sun or not, and his tawny hair was thick and long and wild.

So why was it that groups of girls stopped talking when he approached them at school and answered his openings with terse words that killed the conversations he tried to start? Was he too good-looking? Was that possible? Was that the threat they saw? He was a beautiful omega, he knew -- the Five Howled for him -- but what did human eyes perceive?

The boys nudged each other when he passed; he'd seen them out of the corner of his eye. They noticed him. And he could understand why one or two might blush and stammer if he talked to them. There were always shy boys who would die if anybody noticed them. But where were the bold ones?

Male or female, they resisted him. Could they see the forest in his eyes, the shadow of his pelt? Were his teeth too sharp? It's hard not to be a wolf, he thought.He missed the mountain slopes where humans were far apart and the pack was close, and he hardly ever had to pretend.

I don't care, he thought, twirling around. I don't need humans. I still have the pack, and we'll be moving on again soon. But he did care. The pack was in shreds, and in the midst of these humans he was wolf-kind -- an omega -- and this made him an outsider and unwanted. But they would like me if they took the time to know me, he thought. They just don't know me.

He flung himself onto his bed and stretched his legs in the air to admire their sleek curves, holding his hips to brace himself aloft. He stretched as hard as he could, toes pointed, fingers reaching, muscles in sweet tension, almost as sweet as the change to fur. "I am strong," he whispered. "I can run with the night and catch the dawn. I can kick a hole in the sky." And he struck out with a foot to prove his words. Then curled into a ball.

He missed his father -- his advice, his comfort. He bared his teeth at the familiar pain.

From where he lay, he could see the unbroken wall he'd cleared of furniture and the mural he'd started to console himself and to make this room his.  
Jagged, thick blacks made the forest a wild thing, texture on texture; the painted moon shone fiercely. There was red slashed into the dark -- eyes, blood.

Wolf through the pooled moonlight on a night in his people's ancient past. The stories said that by ritual, sacrifice, and sacrament, they opened their souls to the Forest God, the great hunter who took the shape of the wolf. To reward them for their devotion, his mate, the Moon, gave them the gift to be more than human. Then they could throw aside the pelts of hunted animals and grow their own, abandon their knives of flint and use their teeth. Their children's children's children still carried the beast within, and all were subject to the Moon.

In the center of the mural was where he would become part of the night, where he would run with the pack of his ancestors. But now whenever he picked up the brush, he couldn't go on. He couldn't see himself there. He had a dream about the painting that kept coming back. He was surrounded by darkness and he couldn't see the muzzles around him. He was running, running, trying to reach the open night, but all around the huge forms crowded close and abraded his skin with their harsh thick fur as they thudded into and jostled him. And he couldn't grow his pelt. It was always their fur against his skin, and he'd wake up crying.

As if to counteract the dream, he had become obsessed for a while and had created dozens of smaller paintings and sketches of the pack he knew while growing up. They lined his closet and were stacked in the space between his dresser and the wall. They helped him hold on to the past. They kept him from going crazy.

The art teacher thought he was one of those punk artsy types and raved about the power of expressionism.

Great Moon, he'd shit a brick if he knew my subjects were real, Louis thought gleefully. He'd talked Louis into submitting a few prints to the school literary magazine. He'd laughed at first -- but why not? And now, to his surprise, there was one of his prints near the center of The Trumpet. Louis smiled. And no doubt those humans thought his work was the too-cool vision of the terminally hip and dangerous.

Thought of this small acceptance pushed back the gloom, and he bounded up to fetch his backpack and have another look. He should leave the magazine open on the kitchen table for Mom to see tomorrow before she went to work. Would she recognize her son's art? Would she be proud?

The magazine smelled glossy and was cool in his hands. He found his print and devoured the sheen of it, crisp and stark. And will those people at school notice me now? He thought. He hadn't even bothered to see who he shared space with. Is my work better than the others'? he wondered now. A poem was on the page opposite his. He looked at it suspiciously. A crappy poem would lessen what he'd done, make it cheap. The title startled him -- " _Wolf Change._ " He read on.

_for pelt of dun and brindle luxury._

_A pentagram is burning in your eyes and soft, pale twists of wolf bane squeeze your heart._

_A grinding pain is writhing in your thighs the crunch of bones proclaims the change's start._

_Pirate of the flesh throw back your head and part your jowls to sing a lunar song._

_The forest paths are dark the night is long._

He shivered in delicious shock.  _He knows_ , Louis thought. _He knows what's in the picture_. Anger edged out the excitement and his eyes narrowed. Who was this Aiden Grimshaw? Why should he know forest paths? But he was intrigued. Maybe he should seek Aiden out and have a look at this person who wrote of the crunch of bones, see if he approved of him. And what if he didn't? Set the Five on him? He laughed softly, baring sharp white teeth.


	2. two

The morning was tentatively warm, and the smell of early roses drifted over from a neighbor's yard. The day would be hot later; he was glad he'd decided to wear shorts. _Not much school left now_ , Louis thought as he walked down the tree-lined street. What will I do in the summer? Move, he hoped. Get out of this place.

"Hey, Lou."

A lean, muscular figure peeled out from behind a stone gatepost, and his eyes widened briefly. "Zayn," he said in casual greeting, and kept on walking. If he hadn't been daydreaming he would have sniffed him out.

Zayn fell in beside Louis. He noticed that Zayn was now cultivating a goatee and mustache. He ran a hand through his thick, long dark hair and shifted his grip on a package wrapped in newspaper he carried under one arm. "Going to school?"

"Some of us do."

The Five were more likely to be found hanging out by the diner around the corner from school, or down by the river.

"Yaaaaahhhhhh!" "Whoooooooooooooooo!" Two boys dropped from a roadside tree in a jingling of chains, hair flying. This time he did start slightly,  
and cursed himself. He should have known the others were near. The twins, Willem and Finn, looked pleased with themselves. Round-faced Willem slipped an arm around her waist and gave her a friendly squeeze. "Didn't scare you, did we?" he asked, obviously hoping he had.

"You are such a puppy," Louis said, removing his arm. He'd been Louis' favorite of the twins as they were growing up. He was sweeter and more predictable than his brother, but his affectionate gestures had lost a great deal of their innocence in the last year or so.

Finn, the gaunter twin, smiled sardonically.

Louis was expecting the others now, so it came as no surprise when Liam, the twins' lanky, fair-haired cousin, stepped silently out from behind another tree and folded in with them, and Niall hopped over a white picket fence to dance his jittery way backward up the side-walk, laughing wildly, until Zayn cuffed him to the rear.

They wore their usual uniform of boots, black jeans, T-shirts, and assorted tattoos. Zayn had his sleeves rolled up to show off his biceps. _My bodyguards,_ Louis thought.

"Saw your mother go into Tooleys bar with Harry last night," Finn said. "She was all over him." His lips sketched a spiteful thin leer, and his eyes narrowed expectantly.

Louis bristled, but he wasn't going to say anything. "Yeah, Astrid wasn't far behind," said Zayn. "And she looked pissed." He laughed.

"Hey, leave my mom out of it," Niall piped up. _So that's who they were fighting over,_ Louis thought. Harry. That was disgusting. He was only  
twenty-four. And full of himself, from what Louis could tell.

Zayn took the parcel he carried out from beneath his arm, and Louis heard Niall giggle. Zayn pulled at the knotted string to loosen it. His eyes were more red than brown when he glanced up at him, a wicked grin playing about his lips, and Louis knew he was up to mischief.

"Louis, I'd like to give you my heart," Zayn said, suddenly serious, then immediately grinning again. "But since that might be inconvenient, I've brought you someone else's."

The newspaper unrolled, and he slapped a brown slimy gob down on the sidewalk. "Zayn!" He looked around wildly, hoping no neighbors were in sight. "What the hell are you up to?" The Five were helpless with laughter. Louis grabbed the newspaper from Zayn's hand and scooped up the mess.

"Give you my heart ..." he gasped, and bent over laughing again.

Where could he put this? Where was the body? He started to rewrap the disgusting trophy. Then, "Zayn, you jerk," he cried. "This is a sheep's heart."

More howls of laughter exploded from the Five. He didn't know whether to be angry or relieved. "You were over at Uncle Rudy's store, weren't you?"

Rudy was a meat cutter at Safeway. When no one answered him, he growled and flung the whole package in Zayns face. That set the others off even worse. Niall had tears in his eyes.

He turned and left them, but they followed at a distance anyway, and he heard their bursts of laughter all the way to school.

 _Mom thinks the Five have learned their lesson_ , Louis thought. "Hah!" he said out loud.

When Axel had come home from jail, his father had passed judgment swiftly. The punishment for endangering the pack was death.

Louis couldn't save Axel, but he pleaded with his father for the Five. They were just kids like him. They had only killed to prove the witness wrong and protect the secret of the pack. They wouldn't do it again. So Mark Tomlinson made them beg forgiveness of the Moon and run the Trial of the Fang down a  
narrow path lined with the pack in their fur, and all could take their bites.

Some said that he let the Five off too lightly, although they licked their wounds for weeks. Maybe those people were right. Louis hadn't quite trusted the Five ever since.

It wasn't until almost lunchtime that Louis remembered that he wanted to track down Aiden Grimshaw.

 _Yeah, why don't I have a look at this poet_ , he told himself. _See if I like him writing about things he shouldn't know about_. That was better than sitting around being miserable. Where should he look? He decided to ask his art teacher. He was one of the advisers to The Trumpet.

"Oh, yeah. He's a junior," Mr. Antony said, shaking some brushes out over the art-room sink. "How would I find him?" Louis asked. "Well, if you hang around for another half an hour until second lunch, all you'll have to do is look out that window. He hangs out with his friends in the quadrangle, under those arches over there." He pointed with the brushes to a section of the covered walkway that ran around the perimeter of the square courtyard.

"What does he look like?"

"Oh, I dunno. He's tall, bohemian." _Whatever that means,_ he thought.

Mr. Antony must have noticed his blank look. "You know, a throwback to the sixties, jeans and beads, an MTV hippie." The way he said that made Louis suspect that he thought he'd been the real thing at one time. "Oh, I know," the teacher added. "He was wearing this flowery shirt this morning -- lots of yellow and blue. It made me smile. Listen, I've got to grab a sandwich. Close the door when you leave."

"Sure." Luckily Louis'd brought his lunch with him. He relaxed on the warm windowsill and chewed on a piece of steak while he waited. Groups of kids were scattered across the quad, eating, talking, and sunbathing. Some of the boys had their shirts off, their flesh golden and slick as if they'd swallowed the sun. They were sweet to look upon. His eyes lingered on them tenderly as he bit into his meat.

At the next bell, the shift changed. Kids reluctantly scooped up T-shirts, soda cans, and books, and hurried to class, while others hardly distinguishable from them took their places.

 _I'll be late to French_ , Louis thought. It didn't matter, the teacher loved him. He had a perfect accent. Louis sat upright, and his hands kneaded his empty lunch bag. He kept his eye on the arches.

Two young men walked into view. One had dark, shoulder-length hair and wore a flowered shirt. That must be him. Another boy joined them, then a girl. They stood laughing under the canopy, the shadows hiding their faces. _So that's you, Poet Boy,_ Louis thought, but he couldn't see him clearly. He wanted a closer look.

 _Why am I bothering?_ he asked himself as he went through the side door. Because I'm a pirate of the night and I want to see who's trespassing in my territory, he answered. But maybe he was one of Louis' kind from some other pack. _Or maybe he just knows too much_ , he thought. He laughed aloud at his melodramatic thoughts as he crossed the grass, and a spotty tenth-grader eyed him curiously. The sun was hot, so he peeled off his shirt to reveal the tank top underneath. Shall I only have a look, or will I say something?he wondered. "Ooooh I loved your poem." Instantly he felt like playing wicked games. He put a sway in her walk. Maybe I'll make him look.

The boy to Aiden's left noticed Louis first. He was a burly blond with a good-natured face and eyes that glazed over slightly at Louis' approach. Louis couldn't resist, he winked, and his cheeks turned pink. It was so easy. The other kid, wearing some kind of funny lopsided haircut, kept on yakking away, but the girl looked over and wrinkled her nose. She was small, with close-cropped dark hair -- the sort of girl that wore black stockings even on days like these. I'll put a few more runs in those tights, honey, if you look at me like that again, Louis promised silently.

Then Aiden Grimshaw turned around to see what had captured his friends' attention. The crystal stud in his left ear reflected the sun in a burst of rainbow, and his slow easy smile sent a shock through Louis.

He was staring, he knew, but his face was delicious. Aiden's eyes were amused and dreamy, as if observing life from the outside and finding it vaguely funny. He seemed languid, not intense like the Five -- those jangly, nervy, twitching, squirming, fighting, snapping, sharp-edged creatures who demanded so much from him. He noticed his tall dancers frame and his long-fingered hands, and the thought crossed her mind that she would enjoy him touching her.

"Do I know you?" he asked. He waited expectantly, a bemused look on his face.


	3. three

Louis said the first thing that came into his head. "Um. I liked your poem in The Trumpet." _I don't believe that stupid sentence came out of my mouth,_ he thought.

"Hey, thanks," Aiden said. He still looked puzzled.

 _He's not a werewolf,_ Louis thought in dismay. _How can I react this way when he's not one of us?_ His smell of sweet perspiration and soap was purely human. _Get a grip, boy,_ Louis told himself. He didn't like this off-balance feeling. He put a hand on his hip and dared Aiden's dark eyes to try and drown him now. "Your poem was facing a print of mine. I was glad I wasn't next to some trash."

The blond kid brayed with laughter. "Shut up, Quince," Aiden said, but he grinned.

"That was like some forest scene, wasn't it?" the kid with the funny haircut said. "Spooky, man."

The dark-haired girl put a hand on Aiden's arm. "Bingo's waiting for us."

"Hold on, Kelly." Aiden gently disengaged his arm, and the girl frowned sulkily. "Cool picture," he said to Louis. "It's like you read my mind."

"That's what I thought about your poem," Louis answered. His response to Aiden was disturbing but he wanted to explore it. He took Aiden's hand and turned it up, then ran his nails down the length of his fingers. He didn't resist.

"What are you going to do, tell my fortune?" Aiden asked.

"Yes," Louis answered. He slid a felt pen from his bag. Then, while he watched mesmerized, Louis wrote his phone number in Aiden's palm. On a whim he outlined it with a five-pointed star.

"What's that?" Quince said. "You Jewish or something?"

"Nah," said Aiden softly. "That's a pentagram."

"So she's a witch," Kelly snapped.

 _No, my dear_ , Louis thought. _You don't watch enough Late-night movies. The person who sees a pentagram in his palm becomes a werewolf's victim._

"Are you a witch?" Aiden asked, his eyes twinkling.

Louis' voice was husky. "Why don't you find out?" he folded Aiden's hand around the sign that made him his.

Inside, his heart was thumping crazily in response to his charade, but he refused to lose his nerve.

As he walked away he heard Kelly raise her voice, but he didn't bother listening. Was that his girlfriend then? He could do better. Much better.

All afternoon his thoughts returned to Aiden like a song he couldn't get out of his head. After a while it became annoying. _What am I, a pervert_? he asked himself. He was human, for Moon's sake -- half a person.

 _It's only a game_ , he told himself, _to see if I can snare him_. But he wanted to know what was in a human head to make him write that poem, and he wanted to know why he'd stolen the breath from Louis' lips.

As he reached home the front door opened. Harry, the inspiration for his mother's latest fight, was leaving. He filled the door frame, blocking Louis' way. His T-shirt clung to his wide chest.

"Hi, Lou," he said. "Lookin' good." His voice rumbled like lazy thunder.

The teasing in his green eyes made him want to spit. "Save that for Jay." Harry rubbed his chin and grinned. He noticed the puckered white scar tissue on the back of his right hand. The tip of another scar showed at his throat.

"We don't see you down at Tooley's," he said, ignoring Louis' anger.

He glared up at Harry. "I'm too young to drink."

Harry looked him over, taking his time. Before Louis could help it he tugged at the hemline of his shorts. His shirt felt too tight. He was aware of a droplet of sweat that tickled its way down his chest. "Could have fooled me," Harry finally said.

Louis stared him in the eye, challenging him; he was out of his depth, but defiant anyway, willing his lip not to tremble. There was silence for a moment and he couldn't read Harry's strong, chiseled face. He reached for Louis. He jerked back. Then Harry laughed like a giant and moved aside. Louis slid past him into the house, angry that he'd flinched, but showing him that he dared go by. He closed the door on Harry's arrogant face.

"Mom!" he yelled shrilly. Jay poked her head out from the dining room. "How long's he been here?" Louis demanded.

"Only a few minutes," Jay answered. She looked smug. "He dropped by to invite me for a late-night drink."

"Dammit, Mom. He's twenty-four."

"So?"

"You're almost forty."

"Well, rub it in." But nothing was wiping the smile off Jay's face.

"Don't you think it's a little bit disgusting?"

Jay flung her hands in the air. "Well, for goodness' sake, I'm not serious about him."

"Oh great. Now he's your boy toy."

Jay smirked. "Some boy." She danced up the stairs, her rear end wagging like a tail. Louis followed Jay up and slammed the door of his room.

Rudy had gone to Tooley's bar after work, so there were just Louis and Jay at the dinner table. Louis was still brooding about Harry's visit. He thought of his father and the aching emptiness that still gnawed at him. His parents had seemed so happy together. He'd thought his mother shared that ache, but now Jay was acting like a stupid fourteen-year-old.

"Didn't you love Dad?" he finally said.

Jay looked startled at this question out of the blue. "Yes, I loved him."

"Then why are you out running around?"

"A year's a long time, Louis. I'm tired of crying. I'm lonely. Sometimes I want a man in my bed."

Louis grabbed his plate abruptly and headed for the kitchen. Couldn't his mother talk to him as if he was a sonr? He scraped his leftovers into the trash with a squeal of knife against porcelain.

"Watch those dishes!" his mother yelled.

 _That's more like it_ , Louis thought.

An hour later Louis was on his bed doing some halfhearted studying for Chemistry, when the phone rang. He picked up the phone on the second-floor hallway expecting to hear one of the pack, but it was Aiden.

"There's a free concert at the university this weekend," he said. "Sunday afternoon. You wanna go . . . maybe?"

Louis eyes half closed and he licked his lips. "Maybe. Who's playing?"

He mentioned a band he'd never heard of in reverent tones that suggested it was well known and one of his favorites. He was sharing a special treat with him.

"I'll have to see if my family has anything planned," he told Aiden. "I'll let you know tomorrow." No sense in letting him think him too eager. "No. Don't worry. I'll find you."

Louis hung up and stretched his arms to the ceiling contentedly arching his back. Should he go, or was having him rise to the bait good enough?

But a shadow slid across his pleasant mood. If they went on a date he would want to kiss him. Would he be safe if he came close enough to fill Louis' nostrils with his scent?

Jay walked out of her bedroom. She was wearing the tight black dress she used for waitressing. "Who was that?" she asked casually as she put in an earring.

"A boy from school."

Jay paused. "Oh?"

"He asked me to a concert."

"One of them asked you out?" His mother's expression combined repulsion and surprise. "I won't allow it."

Louis bristled. "You can't tell me who to date."

Jay put her hands on her hips. " 'Don't date if you can't mate,' the saying goes." Human and wolf-kind were biologically incapable of breeding.

"I'm going to a concert, not having his baby," Louis snapped. "And don't tell me wolf-kind only start relationships when they want children. I know better."

"You've got a smart mouth, boy," Jay called as she walked off. Now Louis was sure he was going.

He had phoned, and Louis wasn't an outsider anymore -- untouchable and strange, perhaps invisible. But why should he care so much? Aiden was a human after all: a meat-boy scantily furred, an incomplete creature who had only one form. _How sad_ , he thought, and suddenly he craved the change.

Like all his people, at the full moon he had to change whether he wanted to or not, the urge was too strong to refuse. Other times he could change at will, either partway or fully. Right now the moon swelled like a seven-month bell, and he wanted to change because it was possible. He wanted to run for the joy of it.

He stalked through the backyard dusk, across the bat-grazed clearing in the narrow ribbon of woods out back, over the stream, up the embankment, and down into the wide grassy valley that held the river.

The grass was already high. Here and there might be nests made by kids making out or getting high, but he sniffed the air and smelled no human flesh.

Down by the river was a giant tumble of rocks that screened the riverbank. Behind the rocks, amid the shoulder-high weeds, he slowly slid off his clothes.

Already his skin prickled with the sprouting pelt. A trickle of breeze curled around his buttocks, and his nipples tightened in the cool air off the river. He laughed and threw his underwear down.

His laugh turned to a moan at the first ripple in his bones. He tensed his thighs and abdomen to will the change on, and clutched the night air like a lover as his fingers lengthened and his nails sprouted. His blood churned with heat like desire. _The night,_ he thought, _the sweet night_. The exciting smells of rabbit, damp earth, and urine drenched the air.

The flesh of his arms bubbled and his legs buckled to a new shape. He doubled over as the muscles of his abdomen went into a brief spasm, then grimaced as his teeth sharpened and his jaw extended. He felt the momentary pain of the spine's crunch and then the sweet release.

He was a creature much larger and stronger than any natural wolf. His toes and legs were too long, his ears too big, and his eyes held fire. Wolf was only a convenient term they had adopted. Those who preferred science to myth said they descended from something older -- some early mammal that had absorbed protean matter brought to Earth by a meteorite.

Louis stretched and pawed at the ground, he sniffed the glorious air. He felt as if his tail could sweep the stars from the sky.

 _I will howl for you, human boy,_ he thought. _I will hunt you in my boy skin but I'll celebrate as wolf_. And he ran the length of the river to the edge of the city slums and back, under the hopeful early-summer moon.


	4. four

By eight o'clock the large parlor of Louis' home was full. The pack spread around the room on couches, chairs, and the floor in a rough semicircle that faced the fireplace -- except Astrid, who lounged apart on the seat set into the bay window at the front of the house, and the Five, who loitered to the side of the window, bantering and exchanging playful blows.

Among the crowd were strays who had gravitated to the pack when it came to the suburbs, and others Louis didn't know well who had worked at the inn when he was much younger. Many of those who had gone to join relatives when the trouble started hadn't come back.

Louis felt a pang of loneliness. _This is all that's left of us_ , he thought. _And no one I feel close to. Not even Mom anymore_. He curled up smaller in his armchair.

Astrid laughed at the boys' antics. When she tossed her head, her red hair flamed against the green curtains.

With her sharp features and plump rear, she reminded Louis more of a fox than a wolf.

Harry paced restlessly in front of the fireplace. Astrid glanced over at him repeatedly until she finally caught his eye; then she winked. His grin was slow and smoldering; she sat back with a satisfied smirk.

Louis' mother saw the exchange, too. "Bitch," she muttered. She leaned across Louis to complain to Renata Wagner, then looked over at Harry and licked her lips pointedly.

Renata laughed. "Stop it, Jay." Louis turned away, embarrassed.

"Can we have quiet, please," Rudy shouted.

Jenny Garnier flinched and clutched her baby closer to her. She'd been as raw as a trapped rabbit since she'd lost her husband in the fire. Rudy reached out from his perch on the overstuffed arm of the couch to pat her shoulder reassuringly.

Everyone looked his way expectantly. Well, almost everyone.

Willem and Finn cackled and batted at each other to either side of Niall, who dodged between them, a panicked look on his small, pale face. Zayn was telling the awestruck Liam how big some girl's breasts were.

Zayn's father, Lucien, twisted around in the easy chair he slouched in. "Quit it," he growled, and raised a fist. Zayn glared at his father, but he waited until Lucien turned away before he gave him the finger.

"The insurance money's come through," Rudy said into the silence. There was a brief hiss of whispers. "We've got enough to do what we want now."

Louis bit back a yelp of outrage. This was the news they'd been waiting for and Rudy hadn't told her. They had eaten breakfast together, for Moon's sake.

"And the funny thing is," Rudy continued, "we wouldn't have got the money if Sheriff Wilson hadn't spent so much effort covering up the evidence that the fire was arson so his buddies wouldn't get in trouble."

"Three cheers for Sheriff Wilson," Bucky Dideron called, to gales of laughter.  
Rudy raised his arms. "Okay, okay." The room quieted. "My agents checked out some viable properties," Rudy said. "It's time to choose where the pack will go."

"And who'll lead us," Harry said. Louis was irritated to see Jay smiling. There was no mystery about who she supported.

On the floor in front of their oblivious mother, Harry's sisters -- disturbingly similar eight-year-old triplets -- were intent on finding out who could sit on top of the others the longest. Louis itched to go over and smack them till they yelped. Before he gave in to the itch Harry leaned over and whispered something to them and they settled down.

Old Orlando Griffin spoke up in a quavering voice. "Rudy, you're the one who's pulled it all together. You took us in when we were homeless, helped us settle in an unfamiliar place, found the lawyers, and found the agents. You've been a good leader while we've been here." He pointed to Rudy with a burn-scarred hand. "I vote you leader for the move."

"I appreciate your support," Rudy said. "But I'm not going with you."

"Rudy!" Jay exclaimed.

Rudy ran his fingers through his badger-gray hair. "My life's here. I was willing to help while I could and get things going again, but now it's time for you to move on, and for that you need a different type of leader than I have the strength or the will to be."

"You're assuming a lot," Astrid called from her window perch.

Rudy's brow creased. "What do you mean?"

"What if we don't want to go?" Louis was amazed when Astrid wasn't immediately shouted down. "You've got to go," Rudy said. "This isn't the place for the pack. There are too many humans, too close together. With this many of us, sooner or later someone's going to make a mistake, and this time it might mean the end of us. Look at those boys." He pointed to the Five. "Don't tell me they've got the common sense to stay out of trouble."

"They're only being boys," Astrid said, smiling indulgently at the Five.

"And maybe they got a point," Lucien Dafoe said. "Maybe it's time to change the rules. Maybe it's time to hunt instead of be hunted. That's my opinion."

"We know about your opinions," snapped Aunt Persia, the elderly healer.

 _And your drinking_ , Louis thought. He hadn't handled his losses well. If anyone was a menace, he was. What if he lost control and revealed himself in some bar one night? Rudy was right. They had to get out of the city.

"But we've only now settled in," Raul Wagner said. "We've got jobs." He nodded toward his wife, Magda. "We've finally got a decent house."

"And look what's happening to our kids while we're busting our asses trying to earn enough to live in this city," his brother, Rolf, answered. "We need to live somewhere where we can afford our own business again, where we can make our own hours, make time for the kids."

"Mom," Louis whispered anxiously. "What do you want?" Jay shook her head. "I like it here." But she looked unsure. _I always took it for granted that everyone agreed_ , Louis thought. _That when the time came we would go_.

The Wagners were arguing among themselves now, as if no one else existed; the triplets were wrestling and squealing again; Orlando Griffin was trying to raise his voice above the racket. Jenny Garnier burst into tears and the baby joined her.

Rudy jumped up. "Shut up, all of you!"

His words didn't do any good. The noise crescendoed. Louis put his hands over his ears and wished they'd go away. He saw the Five edging toward the door.

Then Harry strode across the room and leaped onto the coffee table. "Quiet!" The Five froze. The room fell silent. Almost.

Rudy knelt beside Jenny to comfort her, and gradually mother and baby stopped sobbing.

"A strong leader has control, Rudy," Astrid said. "Maybe the reason the boys are running a little wild is you, not the city. I think with the right leader we can make a good life here." She studied Harry with pleasure. "I know a good strong man when I see him."

"You've known a lot of them," Jay said loudly.

Astrids lip twitched but she suppressed the snarl. "What do you say, Haz? Want to stay in town and lead the pack?"

Harry looked from one of the women to the other with languid amusement and Louis thought he'd die of shame.

"Yes, Haz," Jay said sweetly. "You've been very quiet. What do you say?"

"I vote we go," Harry said, and jumped down from the table.

Astrid stared at him in amazement.

"Hah, I vote we go, too," cried Jay, "with Harry to lead us."

Raul stepped forward to face Harry across the coffee table. "What makes you a leader, puppy? I've got years on you." Several other males stood up to argue their cases.

"Come on, let's vote on this," Rolf said. "Let's be fair."

"Who said this was a democracy?" cried Lucien.

"It's not," said Aunt Persia, in a voice that rang effortlessly above the others, startling them all. The keeper of ancient magics raised her hands slowly, her rings glittering. "It is time," she said, "to choose a leader in the Old Way."

"But that's like stepping back into the Dark Ages," Jay cried into the shocked silence.

Louis was stunned. The Old Way? When was the last time they had done that? Yes, his father could have taken on any male around and come out on top, but he had been made leader because of his management skills, and no one had challenged that. He was respected and well loved.

"Not completely the Old Way," Astrid said. "Times are different." Aunt Persia eyed her coldly. "Males only."

"No!" Astrid pounded her seat with a fist.

"You want to get us all arrested?" Renata asked.

"There are several state parks in driving distance," Harry answered. "Places that are deserted at night."

"We've lost so many of us," Rudy said. "Do we want to cause death and injury to those who remain?"

"A leader must have the support of all the pack," said Aunt Persia. "If there is no agreement, then the right must be won by combat."

"The Old Way, the Old Way the Old Way," the Five began to chant. Zayn grinned gleefully; Finn's eyes sparkled as bright as the chains around his wrists.

Orlando Griffin rose and walked to the center of the room. The noise subsided. "As oldest male, I preside in matters of Ordeal," he said. He pointed at the Five. "You are not of age. We do not wipe out our young."

"We can fight," Zayn snarled. Whatever the other boys said was drowned out by the crowd. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone expressed it.

Louis got up quietly and slipped out the door. No one noticed. No one stopped him, not even his mother. It was a relief to leave the house.

Outside, he sat on a bench under the ramshackle grape arbor, half hidden by the trailing vines. The backyard was quiet except for the chirping of tiny nightlife. Early fireflies danced in the shadows.

He had never witnessed the Ordeal. All he knew was that every adult male, excluding omegas, fought in his wolf-shape until one was left standing -- the strongest, the smartest, sometimes the most devious.

He felt a surge of exciting heat, thinking of them in a tangle of fur and limbs. He pictured Harry, half changed, his scarred chest glistening with sweat. He shrugged the image off in anger. Would he win? And would his mother make a bigger fool of herself to become his mate and be Queen Bitch again?

The screen door slammed. The Five came out into the back, mumbling and growling. "That worn-out old dog," Zayn said. "He can't tell us we can't fight."

"Damn right," agreed Liam. "We deserve a chance." Louis laughed.

The Five converged on her. They peered through the vines like angry satyrs. Zayn tore aside the tangle of stems, and his claws grew. "What's so funny, Lou?"

"You," he said. "You honestly think you'd have a chance in the Ordeal? That the pack would follow you? Grow up."

Zayn bared his teeth. His new beard gave him a demonic look. "The fight's the thing," he said tightly, but he knew his fantasy was to win.

"I don't want to get dragged back to the sticks again," Willem said, almost pouting. His twin gave him a glance of disgust.

"Why not?" Louis asked. "Life was good there. The hunting in the hills, long runs with no one around, no one to cry wolf, no hiding, no skulking, no worrying."

"No fun," ended Zayn.

"I don't like your kind of fun," he said. "It doesn't amuse me to rouse lovers out of the long grass by snapping at their heels, or to creep up on children at dusk with my fur on to hear them scream."

"It's a laugh, Louis," Liam said. "Just a laugh."

"You used to think it was funny," Willem said, looking hurt.

"And how funny will it be when you scare the wrong person and get a bullet in the face?" he asked.

"You might be stronger than Homo sapiens, you might heal faster, but you're not immortal. You can die if your head's blown off. It's not only silver bullets or fire that kills us; anything that severs the spine will do."

"Come on, Lou. Don't worry," Willem said gently. "We'd get them first, honest."

Louis groaned and a cold thread of fear ran through him. "That's exactly what I am worried about. This is the same shit that got our home burned and my father killed."

Zayn swung himself through the crumbling frame of the arbor. Moonlight lent a brief sheen to his sleek, muscled arms. "But it's different in the city. Better. Lots of people. Lots of suspects. Easy to hide."

"Anonymous," Liam agreed, shredding leaves from the length of a stem.

"Don't act so prissy, Lou," said Finn. "You've got a taste for boy flesh, they tell me." He ran a tongue over teeth that were pointier than they had been seconds before.

"Who told you that?" he snapped. "Mom said you have a date tomorrow," Liam answered with a sly smile.

Blast Jay; she'd told Renata. "So what?" Louis said. "I'm going to a concert, not disemboweling him. I don't think that's going to get anyone into trouble."

Zayn stepped closer. "We don't like our omegas hanging out with meat-boys. It's unnatural." His breath was hot on her face. "You better not choose some meat-boy over one of us."

"Piss off," Louis spat, and got up. "No one tells me what to do." He shoved Zayn away so he could pass him, catching him off guard.

"You're not Princess Wolf now," Zayn growled behind him. "Wait too long and we'll take what we want."

"Don't give that human anything we can't have," Finn called after him, "or we'll give him something, too." As he stalked into the house, Louis heard Niall's high-pitched giggle. _Damn them_ , he thought.


	5. five

"You're not wearing that dress, are you?" Jay demanded.

Louis looked down at the slinky tank dress that sheathed him. "Yeah. Why not?"

"Don't you think it's a bit small?"

"It's supposed to fit like this." The soft yellow dress clung to every curve as he crossed the dining room.

Louis smiled wickedly at the fleeting glimpse of his leggy reflection in the glass front of the curio cabinet. "Anyhow, it's hot out."

"It damn well will be, with you wearing that," Jay said. "I don't want you giving that boy ideas -- not a meat-boy."

"And you never give anyone ideas, do you?" Louis answered.

Jay looked as if she was about to grow claws but instead she asked, "Where did you get that ridiculous dress?"

"Your closet, Mom." Louis grabbed his tiny best purse from the hall table. "I'm waiting outside."

He swept out the door and slammed it behind him. He imagined with pleasure his mother inside, fuming. Jay wouldn't follow him, Louis knew. He'd pretend that Louis hadn't bothered her in the least.

Louis waited on the sidewalk at the edge of the lawn. What if he'd changed his mind? What if he'd decided he didn't want to go out with Louis after all? He glanced down the road. What did he drive?

A blue sports car tore down the street, speakers blaring nightmare tom-toms at a thousand decibels. It didn't stop. Well, that figured. He couldn't see Aiden Grimshaw in a Corvette, somehow.

Two other cars came down the road in the next seven minutes, and each time his breath caught in his throat, but each time they drove on by.

Louis began to have second thoughts. _What if I can't act normal with one of them? What if he tries to kiss me and I bite him?_ But he couldn't go back in the house and face Jay's smug looks.

Finally, an oddity made a left turn from Madison and chugged along the street, a giant yellow bug that squeaked to a halt in front of Louis' house. Aiden removed his sunglasses and smiled lazily out the window at him. Louis consumed the beauty of him. He sported another outrageous shirt and looked rumpled and warm, as if he had just woken up. The thought of him in bed made Louis' flesh heat and his fears dissolve.

"Like it?" Aiden asked, patting the side of the car.

"Like it?" Louis said. "I'm not even sure what it is."

"Volkswagen Beetle," he answered. "Circa 1972. It sends my father right up the wall -- not only is it imported, but it's the sort of car 'those damn hippies' used to drive."

Louis nodded in sympathy. "I like the dragon on the door," he said.

"Yeah, Jem did it for me." His eyes widened. "Hey, maybe you could paint something, too. You're an artist."

He stroked his lower lip and watched Aiden watching him do it. "Maybe."

Aiden grinned. "Hop in, we'll be late."

The curtain on his front door window dropped when he looked over. _Nosy, nosy,_ he thought smirking and walked casually around the front of the car to the passenger side.

The car smelled of banana and old plastic. There was a book called Witchcraft for Tomorrow on the floor. The seat groaned as it swallowed him, and her dress rode high. He wondered how she would ever get out gracefully when the time came. The look on Aiden's face as he gazed dreamily at his legs made him realize he hoped Louis didn't figure out how. _Touch me_ , he thought. "Are we leaving?" he asked, smoothing his hands down his thighs.

He blinked and paid attention to the wheel once more. "We've got to pick up Quince," he said as he ground the gears and the car jerked away from the curb. He cranked up the radio and Louis relaxed, happy to enjoy the sweet sweat of him, the light fur of his legs, and the way he flashed him smiles like heat lightning.

Quince lived in a brick rambler near the university. Louis had to get out so he could jam himself past the folded-down seat and into the back. He swallowed a chuckle when he actually blushed at his leggy exit, but he wished he didn't have to share Aiden with him. He listened to Aiden and Quince yelling back and forth above the rumble of the engine and the roar of the music -- who was going to the concert, who wouldn't be there -- and tried to picture what was in store for him this afternoon.

The parking lots at the university were packed. Aiden finally parked on a field that had been roped off into temporary aisles. He took Louis hand, pretending to be casual, although he could smell in Aiden's sweat that he wasn't calm; then they followed the noise of the warm-up band until they found the outdoor arena. They wound their way around the patchwork of body-strewn, multicolored blankets laid on a gently sloping lawn, down to a semicircle of tiered stone seats that faced a stage laden with a confusing melodrama of scaffolding, wires, lights, and amps.

"There's Kelly," Quince yelled over the music, pointing to their left. "Keh-LEY!" he boomed, waving his arms above his head. The small, dark-haired girl who'd been with Aiden at school waved back, and two other girls camped out with her on the top tier cheered. Louis and the boys picked their way around the perimeter of the theater, trying not to step on hands or knock over bottles.

"Women!" Quince yelled, and flung himself upon the two nameless girls, biting necks and squeezing as they exploded in giggles.

"You remember Louis, don't you?" Aiden asked Kelly.

"Yeah," Kelly said, not bothering to look at Louis. She wore a black T-shirt, black shorts, and low black boots. Louis hoped she sweltered.

"Hey, man." The hipster with the lopsided haircut he'd seen with them the other day joined them. He turned out to be Jem, the dragon artist. He doled out sodas from an oversized cooler. Aiden grabbed two Cokes and collapsed onto the stone ledge, flicking his hair back. He handed Louis one when he sat beside him. Louis was annoyed that Kelly was on his other side talking incessantly, so he sat close, almost touching, and let Aiden feel his breath on his neck. His head turned, his eyes questioned, and his breath mingled for a moment with Louis'.

"Jeez, they suck," a tall redhead said, climbing over the seat on Louis's other side and nodding toward the stage. "Yo, Aiden." He slapped Aiden's hand.

"Go home!" his pudgy sidekick yelled at the band.

Some kids behind him told him to sit down, and he made a rude gesture at them with little malice attached  
Another girl, a blonde with a nose ring and a pimple on her chin, was close behind them. "Yeah, sit down, shut up, and gimme a beer," she said.

"Christ, Bingo, you're gonna get us thrown outta here," Jem complained. Louis didn't know if Bingo was the girl or the pudgy guy who pulled a red-and-white can from his backpack.

"Bingo!" Aiden held out his arms to the blonde, and Louis's eyes narrowed. The blonde leaned over and planted a fat, sisterly kiss on his forehead.

"Hiya, douchebag." Louis relaxed.

Bingo noticed Louis. "Hey, new boy."

Louis raised two fingers in acknowledgment and said, "Hi." That was good enough for the blonde; she climbed into the row in front and went back to teasing Pudgy Boy.

A crashing chord filled the air, and the band onstage filed off. Some in the crowd applauded, a few whistled, but most seemed to be of the same opinion as the redhead. "Vi-sions, Vi-sions, Vi-sions," some kids in front chanted, impatient for the next act, and others took up the call, but no new band came out. Instead, fuzzy loud rock blurted out from a nearby speaker.

"You go to Wilson?" one of the giggling girls asked.

"Yeah, she does," answered the redheaded boy. Louis was surprised he knew. "Who do you hang with?" the girl asked.

"No one really," Louis answered.

"I've seen you with those hard-core types down by the park," Kelly said, a sneer in her voice. "You mean the Five," Louis answered, unwilling to disown them in the face of Kelly's scorn, no matter how she felt about them right now.

"Is that what they call themselves?" Kelly laughed.

"It's what my family calls them," Louis said. "They grew up together."

"You're related to them?" Kelly asked, seeming shocked.

"They're cousins, sort of."

"Ooh, they're cute," said the other giggler. "Especially that one with the little beard."

"Stay away from him; he bites." The girl giggled louder. Two boys in baggy shorts, high-tops, and loud T-shirts showed up and slapped hands with the other  
boys.

"This is Louis," Aiden said, slinking a firm arm of ownership across his shoulders in response to their covetous gazes. Louis's toes curled with pleasure at the pride in his voice, and he glanced Kelly's way. He liked the way Aiden made him feel like a treasure others should envy him for having. If one of the Five had acted that way he'd have been annoyed, but Aiden made it seem right.

"Welcome to the Amoeba," one of the boys said.

"The Amoeba?" she asked Aiden.

"The gang," he said, tossing his hand to indicate all around. "My people. A large amorphous mass that keeps on changing size, hasn't much apparent use, sometimes makes you sick, and occasionally breaks off into smaller parts that act exactly like the parent." Behind his laughter Louis inspected him with interest. He had a sense of pack. He liked that. In fact, despite Kelly, he liked Aiden's pack. They hadn't challenged him, they had accepted him. Get more than one of his people together nowadays and the sparks flew. This comfort was a relief.

Kelly stood up. "We're going to the bathroom." All the meat-girls followed her obediently; she was head bitch.

"Coming?" Bingo called over her shoulder. Louis shook his head. _I piss when I please_ , he thought. As Aiden bantered with his friends, Louis teased himself with his closeness. He felt good, he smelled sexy, he didn't know why he'd worried so much before. If he bit him it would be a bite he'd enjoy. Louis' chest lightly touched his arm and his breath skipped faster. When would he kiss Louis? Would he like it? He had only kissed hhis own kind. Could it compare?

Right after the girls filed back from the bathroom a cheer went up from the crowd and Louis automatically looked at the stage. Six figures in motley colors pranced out, grabbing instruments and mikes. The fuzzy loudspeakers cut off midphrase and in seconds the air was laced with live music. The tunes were light, jangly, and airy, full of love and dreams, totally different from the thumping, grinding, wrenching music the Five played loud -- music to rip out guts by, Louis called it, though he couldn't deny that it usually gave him a fierce delight. But this music was good, too. There was a sweet yearning in it. He let the music take him, so he could be one with something for a while, instead of an outsider looking in.

The sun was warm on his back and he sucked the warmth up like life. Aiden's hand slid across Louis' neck. He turned to him and met his eyes.

"What red lips you have," he said in Louis' ear. Did he dare say it?

"All the better to kiss you with, my dear," he replied. And then their lips met. He was gentle. Louis hadn't expected that. Kisses to him were a tight clutch, teeth, and tongue. His torturing hands slid down Louis' sides and lightly caressed his back. When he flicked Louis' lip with his tongue, he parted his mouth to invite him in. Instead, he pulled away and sighed. Louis was intrigued.

His eyes were shy beneath his dark lashes, and his lips curved with delight and desire -- desire he wouldn't force on Louis. Then the crowd was on its feet, moving to the swelling music he had forgotten about, and they had to rise and be part of the world. He looked around him at the excited faces. They were different. He was different. He realized he didn't know their rules.

Bingo danced on her seat in a swirl of shirt, the gigglers danced in the aisle, and the crowd around bobbed and waved their arms. When Aiden pulled Louis close to sway alongside him he met his embrace, but how close was he allowed? He didn't want to scare him away but he didn't like to wait. Maybe this was all wrong.

 _This is the last time_ , Louis thought. _No more dates. I can't go through this agony._ The crowd was cheering and his fingers tipped Louis' chin. His soft lips were on his once more, his tongue more adventurous, but his hands still tame. It's a game, he thought ,a game, of pretend we don't want sex so badly. Maybe he thought wanting wasn't polite.

His eyes were closed. He enjoyed Louis taste. His nostrils flared with the smell of him. That was good. But as his eyes began to close, too, he saw familiar figures on the hill above -- the Five.

A busty girl was draped around Zayn's neck, his hand inserted halfway down the back of her shorts. Three other teased-hair dolls in jeans and skimpy tops completed their entourage. This wasn't their music -- far from it; they were spying on her. Louis took a lesson from Pudgy Boy and made an unmistakable gesture in their direction, behind Aiden's back. Then his fingers curled in Aiden's hair. _I will teach you to be less polite_ , he thought.


	6. six

That week Louis couldn't tell if the singing in his blood was for Aiden or for the ripening Midsummer Moon. Each night he ran for joy, but It's not love, he argued to himself at breakfast as he traced Aiden's face in his mind.I'm only having fun.

He came to school early so he would have more time with Aiden, and they stole kisses in the hallway between classes. He liked to watch the color rise on the cheeks of the young men who passed, and see the envy on the faces of the unkissed girls. _I am someone now_ , he thought.

Aiden had a job after school in a video store so he couldn't hang out with him then, but he called him in the evenings, waking him from his pre-run nap, and it turned out they had a lot to talk about. He liked to play "what if." He'd say, "What if a mysterious illness wiped out everyone on Earth but us, what would we do?" and they'd make up all sorts of possibilities.

Louis was reluctant to answer his questions about his family at first, but before long he revealed that his father had died in a fire, and that he was always fighting with his mother, although he didn't tell him what those fights were about. He never made fun of anything he cared about, and he was always interested in what he had to say. What a relief to have someone to listen to him, even if she could only talk about half his life.

Kelly stopped showing up in the quad at lunch, and she took the gigglers with her wherever it was she went. _Smart choice, girl,_ Louis thought. _'Cus one wrong move and I'll be on you_. The thought crossed his mind that maybe now he understood why Jay fought Astrid. He shrugged that off fast. Jay had no right to fight for Harry; he was too young for her.

"There's an anti-prom party at Bingo's house Saturday," Aiden said one day. "Her parents are away. It'll be wild."

"I like wild," Louis said, nuzzling his ear. Saturday maybe he'd make Aiden his for sure.

But on Thursday night when he flung up his bedroom window and looked at the sky, he realized that the moon would be full on Saturday. There was no way he could go to that party with Aiden. The hair prickled roughly on his arms. He climbed hastily onto the porch roof outside his window, leaped to the yard, and the change was upon him almost before he reached the cover of the riverbank weeds.

The nearer to full moon, the quicker the change, the less control; and the night Earth's sister loomed round and whole there was no choice -- aloup-garou must change no matter what. Saturday, Louis thought with dismay as he shuddered to all fours. But then the perfume of the night wiped away his thoughts.

Before dawn Louis stretched into his human shape amid the weeds, wiping the river mud in smears across his naked abdomen. He yawned wide, tongue curling. Time for another nap before school.

The tall grass rustled, but there was no wind. Louis' eyes narrowed. Then he sniffed the musky smell of wolf-kind and his hairs lay flat again.

"Louis," a harsh voice whispered. Zayn crawled from his hidden nest. He waved Louis' underwear at him. "I've been waiting for you."

"Gimme those." He snatched them from Zayn.

He crouched, watching Louis dress. "I miss you," he said.

Louis shrugged. "You see me."

"Not like before."

"We grew apart. You know." They'd been through all that.

"I don't understand you, Louis."

"You sound like my mother."

Zayn stuck his face in Louis'. "You broke up with me because of the girl I killed to get Axel out of jail," he  
said. "But I bet if you got a sniff of human blood you'd get your muzzle wet." he jerked away.

When the Goddess, the Lady Moon, gave wolf-kind the gift to change, she warned the first loups-garoux to pity humans for their soft, immutable flesh, for wolf-kind had once been like them. "Use your eyes," the Goddess said. "Look at them and praise my name for changing you; kill them and kill yourselves." But humans were vulnerable and prey-like. They triggered the instinct to hunt.

"We should stay far from humans when we're changed."

"They are ours to hunt," Zayn said. "Axel knew. He couldn't hold back any longer. We were losing our balls in West Virginia, Louis."

"You can hold tight to your balls and twist," said Louis, dragging his T-shirt over his head. How many of the pack yearn to hunt like the Five? Louis wondered later as he crawled into bed. How long do we have until we are destroyed?

The phone rang while Louis ate breakfast with Jay. Rudy answered it. After a short conversation he came into the kitchen. "That was the last agreement. The Ordeal is on."

"It can't be this full moon," Jay said.

Rudy sat down at the table with them. "I know. Orlando says that by law we have to allow a full month in case others want to come from afar."

"So it's July then," Jay said. "July thirteenth?"

"Sounds right." Rudy shook his head. "I wish it wasn't so far away, though." He finished his coffee and stood up. "Gotta get to work."

"Yeah, me too." Jay said. "Wash up for me, babe. Okay?" She left, followed by the sounds of Louis' protests.

"I'm grounded," Louis told Aiden at lunch time. The idea that someone could limit his freedom was mortifying, but the excuse was something Aiden could understand.

"Grounded?" He looked at him in amazement. "What did you do to get grounded?"

"Stayed out all night with my cousins smoking dope." She was damned if he'd pretend to be grounded for some tame reason.

He ran his fingers through his hair as he digested what he'd told him. Silently, he dared him to tell him off. Apparently he decided not to comment. "How long?"

"Until I talk my mother out of it, which is usually a week." That was a tiny bit of truth. Aiden's dark eyes lowered in disappointment. "I guess the party tomorrow night is off, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Never mind," Aiden said, kissing Louis' ear. "When you're sprung, we'll have our own party." He was gullible, Louis thought. That irked him slightly. But he had no reason to distrust him; why shouldn't he believe?

Aiden didn't have to be at work until six so Louis allowed him to drive him home. "But you can't stay long," he told him to keep up the act. "My mother will be home soon." That was true, anyway. Jay worked the day shift around the full moon. Biting customers didn't make for good tips.

  
They sat on a log at the far edge of the backyard under the broccoli-headed summer trees. "Which is your room?" Aiden asked. Louis pointed to the window above the screened-in back porch, and he sighed loudly to tease him. "I'll miss you tomorrow," Aiden said. There were crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled. He  
was a creature of warm sun and comfort.

"What made you write about werewolves?" Louis asked, thinking of the dark forest in his poem.

Aiden shrugged. "I like all that stuff -- witches, vampires, werewolves. It's exciting."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know. I've never thought about it. Because I want to be like them, maybe? I don't want to be like everyone else." He carefully allowed an ant to crawl from his wrist to a blade of grass.

  
Louis laughed. Any one of the Five would have crushed that bug. "I don't think you'd make a good werewolf."

"Sure I would." He grabbed Louis hand and playfully bit his fingers. His teeth set loose tiny lightning within him. Raucous hoots filled the woods behind them, and bodies crashed through the undergrowth. She pulled her hand away.

"What's that?" Aiden asked.

"My cousins," he answered. "Damn them." They couldn't find him here with Louis. Not that he couldn't handle them, but he didn't want to raise any questions he couldn't answer for Aiden. And what if he blamed them for getting Louis grounded? Great Moon, they'd laugh.

"I've got to go in," she said. "I promised not to hang with them while I'm grounded. They've only come to screw around outside and piss off my mother."

  
"Some family," Aiden said, and tried to kiss him.

He hated to push him away. "Go, go, go. They're trouble."

He glanced at the woods and he saw worry in his eyes, but his lips took on a stubborn hardness. "Please, for my sake," he said, to save Aiden's pride.

He hesitated. "Well, okay. See you before you know it," he promised, and left by the side path.

Saturday evening stretched on forever, golden with sun and rich with the smell of honeysuckle. "Come with us," Jay begged. Most of the pack were going up to the state park to run. "Not this time," Louis said. He wanted to be alone. There would be fights, he knew. They would call it playing but they would be testing each other, seeing who had what it took for the Ordeal. He didn't feel like fights. He only wanted the clear smells and the crazy stars. There was a new warmth in him and he wanted to embrace the night in peace.

 _You are smitten,_  he told himself, and he stretched like a happy puppy. Up in his room he worked on his mural. He painted himself in his skin, watching the running wolves. It didn't look right. Maybe he should show himself changing, ready to join them.

 _I wish I was changing clothes to go to that party,_ he thought, and threw his brush down. Red dappled the sky, fireflies flickered outside his window -- little wantons looking for a night of love --and the voices of the dusk grew loud. The fine hairs on Louis' back rose, eager for the change. Wait a while, he told himself ,wait till it's fully dark. But it was hard to wait for the night at full moon.

There was muffled laughter in the yard below. _What now?_ A chorus of ragged voices split the air, drowning out the insect song. "Ahwooo! Ahwooo!"

  
He stuck his head out the window. "Quit that howling out there." The howling dissolved into more laughter. "Come out and run with us, Louis," Willem called. "Please, please."

"No way," Louis called back. He climbed out onto the roof and looked down.

Finn appeared disgusted as Willem wrung his hands theatrically. Niall was fidgeting as usual, hopping from one foot to the other as if he wanted to pee. Liam grinned glitteringly bright; his teeth were already pointed. "Come on, Lou. We're gonna have a great time."

Zayn beckoned with a claw. "The moon feels good on your back, Lou."

  
Louis could feel the wolf inside uncurling, but he laughed derisively. "It's not the moon you picture on my back. Go visit your head-banger sluts and see what they think of you with your fur on. They probably won't notice the difference."

  
Liam's pointy grin got wider at that suggestion and Niall giggled.Great Moon, he thought. Willem looked up with huge, disappointed eyes. "Aw, Lou. You never come anymore. The rabbits are getting sassy. One poked its tongue out at me last night."

  
He softened slightly. He and Willem used to have the best times rabbit hunting. "Another time, okay, Willi? But not full moon."

Zayn put his arm around Liam's shoulders. "Come on then. That bitch is too stuck up to hang with us anymore. He prefers meat-boys. Didn't your mother tell you not to play with your food?" he yelled up at Louis.

  
Willem shot him an apologetic glance, and Liam blew him a kiss. Finn nudged Niall in the rear with a boot, making him squeak. When they reached the gloom of the woods he saw Zayn toss his shirt in the air and saw Finn tip forward to stand on paws.

  
He sat on the porch roof, allowing them plenty of time to leave. They usually ran toward the city to find mischief in the urban debris; he would run upstream through local parks and quiet neighborhoods.

  
A pleasant hum coursed through him. The night began to look different -- the hairs on a leaf stood huge like a forest, the edges of the trees were crisp. She lay back to enjoy the stars.

  
 _Did we come from there?_  he wondered. _Are we an alien race that was marooned? Perhaps our transmuting power was a surLoual trick, and now we've forgotten that human wasn't our first form. Perhaps belief in the Moon Goddess was only an echo of an ancient truth._

The shingles beneath her were rough and pleasing to his sensitive skin. He already felt the beginning creak of bones reforming, the pop of sinews changing.  
He forced down the cramp in his gut; he would have to leave soon. He couldn't change on a rooftop lit by moonlight. What would the neighbors think? As if on cue, he smelled the odor of a human. _Someone taking an evening stroll, perhaps?_

There was scrabbling down where the drainpipe emptied. Rat? He rose to a crouch. No, someone was climbing the pipe. He heard a muffled grunt of effort and the tinyching of metal against metal.

  
 _Burglar?_ The lights were off, the truck was gone, it was Saturday night. Possible. Louis crept to the edge of the roof, keeping low. His eyes narrowed, his claws grew, and his smile was thin and vicious. Burglar Bill would take some stripes home.

  
He lifted his hand to strike as a head rose over the eaves. "You!" He snatched his hand back.

"Louis, you scared the piss outta me." Aiden pulled himself over the gutter and onto the roof.


	7. seven

"Surprise!" Aiden said.

Louis swallowed a growl. No shit. "What are you doing here?" he managed to choke out as he sat back on his haunches. He trembled with the strain of holding back the change.

"I thought you'd be happy to see me," Aiden said. "You startled me," Louis muttered, sorry about the hurt in his eyes.

Aiden's velvet smile forgave him. "I thought if you couldn't get to the party, I'd bring the party to you." He crawled to Louis' side and shrugged off his backpack. Louis almost pulled away but the richness of Aiden's smell held him close against his will. "I wasn't expecting to find you on the roof," he said. "I was gonna knock on your window." He unbuckled the backpack and pulled out a bottle of wine.

Dear Moon, he's sweet, Louis thought in anguish. A swift pang hit his gut, and he bit the inside of his cheek, hoping the pain would keep him sane. Not sweet like that, he screamed silently, staring with panicked eyes at Aiden's round firm thighs.

After the wine came two glasses wrapped in a bandanna, then a chunk of cheese, a plastic knife, and some paper napkins left over from Christmas. "Classy, huh?" Aiden's eyes glittered with delight.

Louis licked his lips nervously. "Lovely. You brought dinner," he heard himself say. He wanted to bolt for the woods. _You fool,_ he thought. _You shouldn't have come._

He glanced at the moon. It was still behind the trees, its light mercifully broken by foliage so that he and Aiden were covered by mottled shadow. Could Aiden see any change in him? Aiden was cutting slices of cheese onto the bandanna, babbling away. He didn't seem to notice anything wrong.

Louis experienced a dizzying surge of pain and pleasure and his face twitched. His hands flew to his ears and felt them push past his fingers. He hastily rearranged his hair around his face. _How do I make him go?_ he thought as her joints began to pop.

"Here you go." Aiden held a slice of cheese to Louis' mouth and it was all he could do not to take Aiden's fingers off. The cheese was sharp and ripe and clung to Louis' tongue. He sluiced it down with the glass of wine Aiden offered.

"Hey, silly, you're supposed to sip," he said. "I don't want you doing something you'll regret later." His eyes suggested otherwise.

Louis' lips raised into what he hoped was a smile; then he turned away swiftly. How were his teeth?

Aiden moved closer and put an arm around him. "You pick a funny time to go shy on me," he said.

Louis' shoulders shook with silent laughter at his own stupidity. How could he think he could be intimate with a human? He detected an undeniable rippling up his spine, and a hardness came to his eyes and the corners of his mouth. He tested a new idea. _So what if I hurt him_?

"Louis?" Aiden whispered. His breath was light on Louis' cheek, fragrant with the warm wine and cheese.

It was a stupid thought. He doubled over and moaned. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"What's wrong?" Aiden asked, surprise and concern in his voice.

"I think I'm coming down with the flu," Louis said. What a brainstorm. "Maybe you should go. I don't want you to catch it."

"But someone should look after you if you're ill."

"I'd rather be alone," he insisted through clenched teeth. Still Aiden didn't move to go. "What's wrong with you, boy?" Louis cried. "Do you like watching people throw up?" His eyes widened. Louis felt like a jerk. He changed his tone. "Please. I'll be embarrassed if you stay."

"But -- "

A spasm ripped through him and the bones in his knees crunched. "Go! Please go!" he yelled, and scrambled for the window like a drunk, his legs refusing to obey. "I'm going to be sick."

Louis dove onto his bed, rolled to the floor, and spidered out of the room on knuckles and toes. He reached the bathroom at the end of the hall and slammed the door behind him. He shot the bolt home.

Outside the window the swollen moon leered at him over the tops of the trees.

He shuddered with pain, and tears outlined his downy face. He had never nown a time when he hadn't wanted the change, hadn't enjoyed the change, but now he was nauseated from holding it back. Aiden couldn't see him like this. Louis couldn't betray his people.

There was a gentle tapping on the bathroom door. "Are you all right?"

Louis tried to say Yea, I am, but his jaw was wrong for speaking and the words came out a muffled growl. Why was Aiden making this beautiful gift seem dirty?

"Well, if you're sure you'll be okay ..."

"Hhhhhhmmmmmmmmm!" Louis moaned, hoping it sounded like an affirmative. His arms lengthened, his muscles bulged, and he tore at his clothes as his pelt rippled over his flesh. He had never had to hide away before. What a crime to trap his beautiful body. It was all Aiden's fault.

"Look, like, give me a call tomorrow and let me know how you are. Hope you feel better." When he was sure Aiden had gone, Louis quietly pulled back the bolt with short, furred fingers. He reached for the doorknob.

 _But what if I'm like Axel?_ he thought. _What if I smell him as prey when I'm in fur?_

He clenched his hand, withdrew his shaking fist, and curled into a tight, trembling ball on the bathroom floor. I won't go out, he promised. I won't go out. If he did, he might follow Aiden and stalk him to his lair.

Louis shuddered into his final shape, raised his muzzle, and howled frustration at the porcelain tile. His voice echoed about him like a curse.

Louis blinked his eyes in the early-morning sun. The sound of a truck door slamming had awakened him. Jay and Rudy were back. He sneezed, sending dust mice scurrying, and crawled, pink and naked, out from under the bed, where he'd spent most of the night. He was drained and aching from clenching his body tight against its needs.

 _I'll have to tell him I can't see him anymore_ , he thought. _I can't hide from him every full moon_. He tried to feel self-righteous and committed, but all he felt was a sinking feeling in his gut. He had climbed up to Louis' window, brought him wine, thought of him when he could have been out partying. He remembered the tickle of his hair on Louis' cheek, his breath on Louis' neck, and shivered deliciously.

Louis reached for his robe, which lay in a silken gray-and-blue shimmer across his desk chair, and dragged a brush through his tangled tawny hair. _No,_ he told himself firmly. _I'll leave the poor boy alone._ How long before the Five bothered him because of Louis? How long before the pack stepped in? They wouldn't be leaderless forever. Soon there would be someone to answer to. That last thought annoyed her. Maybe she didn't want to answer to someone.

"Perhaps Astrid's right," Jay said as Louis walked into the kitchen.

What do you mean?" asked Rudy from the counter, where he was pouring the coffee.

"Why aren't females and omegas allowed to compete in the Ordeal?" Jay said. She sat at the kitchen table. There was a leaf in her hair, and Louis was jealous of Jay's night in the open.

"Gimme a break!" exclaimed Rudy. "Isn't it obvious? It's purely physical. Females and omegas are in a different weight category. Their muscles don't develop to the same degree. Why risk injury or death with no chance to win?"

Louis took the cup of coffee meant for her mother from Rudy's hands and leaned back against the counter to drink it. Rudy rolled his eyes, but poured another cup.

"But some females are smarter than some males, craftier fighters," Jay argued.

Rudy set Jay's coffee in front of her and sat down himself. "Stop being awkward, Jay. It's only a way of matching fairly and protecting our own. You females get your chance. It's only the top female who mates with the victor. She has to be the strongest and the smartest to ensure our surLoual."

"Yeah, great, some chance. It's a male's world, isn't it? A female may be queen bitch but she doesn't get to choose her king."

"You loved Ivan, didn't you, Sis?" Rudy asked. "You didn't beat the crap out of every new girl who came along with a challenge just for the status."

Louis watched his mother's face closely.

Jay glanced down, but not before Louis saw her eyes soften. "Yeah," Jay said.

"And he loved you. You had his tail between your teeth. Who's to say the queen bitch isn't the real pack leader?"

 _Yes,_ Louis thought. _Mom always got her way with Dad. But what if she'd wanted the power but not him? She couldn't have had it._

"So you had options," said Rudy. "You didn't have to fight for the leader. Females and omegas can choose any other mate as long as he'll have them."

"That's a mockery," Louis said, startling them. "The match still has to be pack approved, and she isn't even allowed to whelp without the permission of the leader. What kind of choice is that?"

"Well," Rudy said, amusement in his eyes. "I didn't know we had another rebel in the house."

Jay laughed. "He's a teenager, for Moon's sake. He's supposed to rebel."

Louis bristled. How easily they dismissed his feelings as a stage he was going through. His mouth closed into a thin line.

Jay grinned and winked at Louis. "Never mind, babe. I'm sure we won't dare deny you when you make your choice. You'd make our lives too miserable."

 _Yeah?_ Louis thought. _I might surprise you_. He glared at his mother and drank in silence. _Dammit, there's no reason I should let pack traditions rule me_ , he decided. _The Law is supposed to keep us safe and strong and able to birth healthy children, yet the Law wants us to tear each other apart to find a leader. The Law's a bunch of hypocrisy._

In his room, relaxed after a shower, Louis stood in the breeze of his fan, enjoying the coolness of air on his wet skin. He smiled lazily, imagining fingers trailing instead of water drops. _There must be a way to cope with Aiden_ , he thought. _There has to be._

But was Aiden angry with him after last night? He had ruined his surprise. The boys he had known in the past would have been pissed. But then, Aiden wasn't like the boys he had known, was he? That was the point.

Louis walked down the hall to the phone.


	8. eight

"Why does he have to drag parents into this?" Louis grumbled as he ransacked his closet.

Aiden's family were having their first cookout of the season to celebrate the end of school, and Aiden had invited Louis along.

"It'll just be casual," he'd told Louis.

Casual! What was so casual about being inspected by parents?

The weather was too hot for jeans, so he pulled out a scarlet tank dress. Parents liked dresses, didn't they? Louis wanted them to like him, for Aiden's sake. He wiggled into the sheath of cotton and swept his thick hair back with combs. But that didn't mean he couldn't dress for Aiden, too.

Rudy shook his head when he saw Louis come downstairs. "God help the poor bastard, whoever he is."

Aiden honked outside, and Louis hurried out before Jay could have a chance to see who he was leaving with.

He was pleased with Aiden's low whistle when he saw Louis, and not even the kiss he gave him could completely wipe the silly grin off his face.

Louis could smell the aroma of charcoal as soon as they pulled to the curb in front of a large brick, ivy-covered house. Aiden led him through a white picket side gate and past the kitchen steps to the backyard. On a crazy-paved patio a thin, slightly balding man in a striped apron was poking at the embers under the grill.

"Hi, Dad!" Aiden called.

The man looked up, waved a spatula at his son in greeting, and then saw Louis. His mouth opened a fraction wider, and he raised his eyebrows. He recovered quickly. "You're Louis?"

"Pleased to meet you," he answered.

"Well, you're an improvement," Mr. Grimshaw said, and laughed.

"Dad!" Aiden looked mortified.

"He usually goes for the combat boots and black eyeliner types," Aiden's father explained. "I'm glad he's brought home someone normal for a change. They usually scare the hell out of me."

"Stop embarrassing your son." An attractive woman, older than Louis' mother, came down the kitchen steps, carrying a tray. A skinny girl in pink shorts, about thirteen years old, followed her with soda bottles under each arm. The girl eyed Louis boldly.

"This is my mom," Aiden said, "and my sister, Ashley."

"We're happy you could come," Mrs. Grimshaw said, but her smile was brittle as she took in Louis head to toe. She put her tray on the picnic table.

"Yeah," said Ashley. "Sure." She dumped the big plastic bottles beside the tray, then flopped into a recliner and dragged the earphones around her neck back to her ears.

"Ashley, there are people present," her father called over.

Ashley closed her eyes in response, and Mrs. Grimshaw sighed in exasperation. "Want a Coke?" she asked Louis.

"Yes, please. Great."

"How do you like your burger?" asked Mr. Grimshaw.

"Rare, thank you," Louis answered. He sat on the other recliner and crossed his legs. Aiden sat on the flagstones at Louis' side. He could tell Mr. Grimshaw was sneaking peeks at him. Aiden was too busy looking at Louis himself to notice.

Aiden's parents were polite enough, but he didn't feel as if he was being welcomed as part of the family or anything; he was more of a curiosity.  
He felt vaguely worried. Would they change Aiden's mind about Louis?

The meal was served with small talk at the picnic table. Aiden took every chance he could to touch Louis, brushing his fingers when he handed him a fork, wiping some crumbs from his face, nudging him with his shoulder when he made a joke. Louis noticed that his mother looked away when he did this, as if his affection bothered her.

Louis told the edited version of his background. Mrs. Grimshaw was thrilled at the concept of running a country inn. She had the impression that Jay must be very chic. "You must introduce me to your mother," she said. _Yeah_ , Louis thought. _I know you'd love to go with her to a biker bar and get into a friendly fistfight over some guy with "Suck My Crankshaft" tattooed over his heart._

"I expect you're proud of Aiden's poem in The Trumpet," Louis said to change the subject.

Ashley burst out laughing.

Mr. Grimshaw stabbed another burger from the serving plate. "I would have preferred a team picture in the yearbook." It had the smell of an old argument.

Louis expected some words of support from Aiden's mother, but none came. Aiden concentrated on his food, but his cheeks were flushed. Louis wanted to leave and take Aiden with him.

When they'd finished eating, Aiden helped his mother take the dishes inside. Mrs. Grimshaw looked surprised, and Louis knew that Aiden must be on his best behavior.

Mr. Grimshaw glanced over at his daughter, lost again in her Walkman, before he addressed Louis. "Um, so, what's a gorgeous boy like you doing with my son?" he asked.

Louis was tempted to say He's great in bed, just to see Mr. Grimshaw's face, but he didn't. "He's pretty gorgeous himself."

"He'd be better-looking if he'd cut that damn hair. I would think a girl like you would go out with someone older." He winked at Louis.

 _Like someone your age?_ Louis thought, repelled by the man's lack of loyalty to his son. He gave him a sultry look. "Well, some older men are attractive," he said in a purposely breathy voice, and watched him puff up like a rooster, "but I haven't met any for a while."

Luckily Aiden and Mrs. Grimshaw came back before Mr. Grimshaw figured out whether or not he'd insulted him, and Ashley removed her headphones to ask in a bored tone when dessert was coming.

"I'm gonna show Louis my room," Aiden said.

Ashley perked up. "Whoa-oh-oh."

"Do you think that's quite proper?" his mother asked.

"Gimme a break," he mumbled. "You're all down here, aren't you?"

"I don't know why you'd want to show that room to anyone," Mr. Grimshaw said. "But don't be long or we'll send the posse after you." He laughed self-consciously.

Aiden relaxed the moment they were alone. He nuzzled and kissed Louis all the way up the stairs while he squirmed and tried not to giggle too loudly. He wished Aiden's family was a thousand miles away.

"I'm sorry I mentioned the poem," he said.

Aiden shrugged. "That's all right."

The woodwork in his room was painted black, and so were the radiators and the ceiling. The walls were covered with posters and hooks from which dangled such things as beads, tassels, and a fake shrunken head made from an apple. "My mom wouldn't let me paint the walls black," Aiden explained. "She said it would be hard enough painting over the ceiling when I finally left home, so I gave her a break."

 _I'll bet_ , Louis thought, imagining the fight they must have had. "I'm painting my room, too." He told him about the mural.

He laughed. "I guess your mom's not too thrilled, either."

He shook his head. "Cute," he said, examining a plastic model of Godzilla that marched across the top of his black dresser, followed by half a dozen smaller Godzillas.

"Momzilla," Aiden said.

Next to the Godzilla family was a mound made of plasticine topped by a crucifix. He suspected it was meant to be a grave. A tiny doll's hand poked through the surface, like a corpse emerging.

"You've got a warped sense of humor, boy," he said.

Aiden laughed with him. "My aunt Sarah gave me the cross. It's real silver. She thinks I'm going to hell."

"Why's that?" Louis asked. It seemed strange that one of his own pack would damn him like that.

"Oh, my long hair, I listen to Satanic music, and I have an unhealthy curiosity. She suggested to my mother that she burn my books."

"No!"

"Honest."

Louis walked over to have a look at those dangerous works of literature in his bookcase. Most were horror and fantasy novels, but at the end of the middle row sat A Witches' Bible Complete and The Druid Tradition. An Aleister Crowley paperback lay open, facedown on the top shelf.

"You believe this stuff?" Louis asked.

He looked relieved that there was no sarcasm in his voice. "Well, curious really. I mean, we shouldn't close ourselves to possibilities right?"

So he liked to be open to possibilities, huh? Was he open enough to accept the truth about Louis? There was a thought. Would Aiden still care for him if he knew?

"You read Tarot?" he asked, picking up a pack of cards. It was the classic Rider-Waite deck.

"I haven't learned yet. I've got something about it here, though." He shuffled through some books.

"That's okay," Louis said. "I only wondered. My great-aunt uses that deck." It was easier to call Persia Devereux that than to explain. A pack was like family, and all older members were aunts and uncles. "She's very good."

"Cool. Your aunt reads Tarot. What other neat stuff does your family do?" _Wouldn't you like to know?_ he thought.

"That's a wicked smile." He put his arms around Louis. "Are you getting ideas now I've got you in my den of iniquity?"

Den. He liked his choice of words. "And what ideas would I be getting?"

"Something like this." His lips met Louis', and his hand slid down to cup his left buttock gently. Louis put his own hand over Aiden's and made him squeeze harder as his tongue snaked into his mouth. Why did Aiden always have to be so damn polite?

He moaned. _Thats better_ , Louis thought. _Loosen up, boy._

"Dessert time!" Ashley's voice echoed up the stairwell.

"Oh, man." Aiden kissed his neck. "Better go, or she'll come and get us." His voice was husky. Louis loved hearing him sound that way. "You go on down," he said, releasing Louis. "I've got to do a couple of things."

 _Yeah, like pour a glass of cold water down your shorts_ , he thought, and grinned. "See you soon," he whispered, and slinked out in a way that he knew would keep him up there a few extra minutes.

After dessert, Louis excused herself. "I need to use the bathroom," she explained.

"Aiden, show Louis the rest room in the basement, will you, so he doesn't have to go traipsing upstairs again," Mrs. Grimshaw said.

 _To keep me away from his bedroom, you mean_ , Louis thought.

When Louis had come downstairs, Mrs. Grimshaw had stared at him as if Aiden had left handprints all over his dress.

Aiden took Louis through a door into a workroom. Guns hung on the wall and a workbench was scattered with parts and tools.

"Dad's hobby," Aiden explained. "He collects and repairs antique guns."

Louis was fascinated. "What's that?" he asked, pointing to some equipment on the bench.

"He makes his own bullets for some of them," Aiden said.

"Isn't that hard?"

Aiden shook his head. "No. He taught me."

Louis was surprised. "I wouldn't think you were into guns."

"I'm not. That was a long time ago. He used to take me out hunting," Aiden said. "You know, like a 'real American' father and son are supposed to do. I hated it. There should be more to being with your father than going out and killing something together."

Louis didn't speak. He'd give anything to be able to go out and kill something with his father again. This made him feel sadly distant from Aiden. Louis took his hand from his waist. "I'll meet you back outside," he said.

"Oh, yeah. The bathroom. Over there." He pointed to a door near the stairs.

Coming out of the bathroom, Louis heard voices upstairs from the direction of the kitchen.

"He seems rather sophisticated for Aiden, don't you think?" said Mrs. Grimshaw.

"He does seem mature." Louis could hear the innuendo in Mr. Grimshaw's voice. It made her skin crawl.

"You watch yourself." Mrs. Grimshaw didn't sound amused. "You'd better have a talk with that boy." Louis heard the sound of a screen door closing. Have a talk with him about what? she wondered. What had she done wrong? Why did Mrs. Grimshaw not want a mate for her son? The rest of the visit was ruined for Louis.

"Your parents don't like me," he said on the way home.

"That's a good sign," Aiden said. "They don't like any of the people I care for."

But it wasn't only his parents. Louis took a deep breath. "People weren't friendly at school, either," he said. "Is there something wrong with me?"

"God, no!"

Aiden didn't say anything else for a while, but just when Louis thought he had nothing to add to the topic, he spoke. "You're, like, so beautiful and cool and sure of yourself, I think the kids at school were frightened of you."

"Frightened of me?" Louis laughed with surprise. These people didn't have enough sense to know what to be frightened of. He could show them frightening.

"Well, you know," Aiden continued. "Afraid that maybe you wouldn't tolerate lesser mortals, so why bother."

They pulled up in front of Louis' house. "So, are you afraid of me?" he asked, trying to keep the amusement from his voice.

"Terrified," Aiden said as he reached for him.

Louis stopped him with a gentle touch. "Why weren't you like the others? Why didn't you freeze me out when I talked to you the first time?"

He studied Louis while he thought. "Well, apart from the fact that you're the most beautiful boy I've ever seen, curiosity, I suppose."

"Curiosity?"

He looked down into his lap as if shy of telling him. "Until you drew that pentagram in my palm, then I knew we could be friends. That you might be . .." He bit his lip and flung his head back, eyes closed. "Oh, man. This sounds dumb."

He was so endearing. Louis leaned over and touched the tip of his tongue to his cheek. "What does?"

"That you could be my soul mate." He said it fast, looking everywhere but at Louis. "That I could bare everything to you and you would understand."

Louis was stunned. He was exposing his belly to him. A rush of warmth filled Louis. "Sweet puppy," he said. "Bare everything and you would certainly have my undivided attention." His tongue touched Aiden's ear.

"You're making fun," he said, his anxious eyes finally meeting his.

Louis sat up straight. "No, I'm not. I'm honored," he answered seriously. He didn't want to hurt Aiden's feelings.

He relaxed and the smile came back to his eyes. "See you tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yeah."

Was he Aiden's soul mate? Louis wondered up in his room. Wouldn't he know if he were? Maybe if he made him the mate of his flesh first, then he would know.


	9. nine

They were always at parties, or at the movies, or hanging out at someone's house, always in the midst of Aiden's friends, the Amoeba. Even when they were alone together he was very careful in how far he went, as if he was afraid to scare Louis off. This made him smile. _Soon, baby, I'll let you know how scared I'm not,_ he thought.

Then one evening, when he took Louis home, Aiden had bad news. "I have to go on vacation with my parents." He flushed with embarrassment as he told him. "I thought I could get out of it," he said. "I'm too old to get dragged to the beach with Mommy and Daddy. But they went on and on, you know, about how I'll be in college soon and it's our last chance to have a family vacation together, blah, blah, blah." He smiled anxiously at Louis. "I'll miss you."

"And my birthday," Louis said sulkily, then immediately felt bad because he looked so stricken. Louis kissed his cheek, letting his lips linger there as he whispered a kind of apology. "Never mind, bring me back a shell or something." He could feel Aiden's skin grow hot as he responded to the warm flutter of Louis' breath.

"I'll be back just in time for the Fourth of July," he promised, slipping his arms around Louis. "We'll go see the fireworks at the park. I bet someone's having a party." Someone was always having a party.

Apparently there wasn't to be a birthday fuss this year. Louis found presents from Rudy on the kitchen table with a note explaining he would be out late and, after tossing her own contribution down, Jay went off humming to talk on the phone for hours. _Thanks for sticking around to see if I like it_ , Louis thought as he unwrapped a silky blouse. Once his birthdays had been celebrated by all the pack.

At eight that evening the doorbell rang. "Go answer it," Jay called from upstairs. "It's my date." _Great,_ Louis thought. _She's leaving me alone on my birthday._

But when he opened the door the Five surged in. They swept him back to the living room with hugs and licks and love bites and cries of "Happy birthday!" Liam carried a big paper bag stuffed with packages.

Jay ran down the stairs, giggling. "A person should have plenty of men around on their birthday," she declared.

The doorbell rang again and Jay went to answer it this time. She came back with Harry.

 _Oh, I get it,_ Louis thought. _Bring your own babe._ But Jay looked surprised. She swept her hair back with long fingers and managed to undulate while standing still. "Harry." Her voice was suddenly husky. "Come to take me somewhere good." She crooned the last word.

"I came to wish Louis happy birthday," he said.

"How nice," Jay said, dropping the purr.

 _Great Moon, he's politicking,_ Louis thought, _like he has to win votes for leadership instead of win a fight._

"Kissing babies?" Louis asked.

"I'd hardly call you a baby," he replied, looking him over with a grin.

 _Jerk,_ he thought.

Jay ran to the kitchen and came back with a six-pack of Coke and two bags of chips, which she dumped on the coffee table. That was her idea of being a good hostess.

Zayn rolled his eyes when Louis passed him a Coke. He took a big gulp; then, as soon as he thought Jay and Harry weren't looking, he took a small flask from his back pocket and added an amber fluid to the can.

Liam tipped the contents of the bag he carried onto the table beside the refreshments. "Presents," he declared unnecessarily, and settled his gangly frame upon the couch. Louis noticed he was growing sideburns. He'd grow a small beard soon, he knew. He always copied Zayn.

While Jay exclaimed over the tumbled pile of gifts, Niall fidgeted and nudged till Zayn handed him the flask. Harry saw this time. He didn't say anything, but his lip rose in a snarl. _Who died and made you God?_ Louis thought. Zayn glowered back defiantly, but he put the flask away. Niall pouted, his blonde locks falling around his face.

"Aren't you going to open your presents?" Finn asked.

Louis gave in and picked up a parcel. Inside she found a scant, lacy slip. "Don't tell me," he said. "You went shoplifting at Victoria's Secret." The Five collapsed into hysterics, and Willem pushed another gift into Louis' hands. Jay and the boys howled with laughter as Louis opened box after box of provocative gauzy underwear.

"Try them on," Willem urged as he held aloft another pair of frilly panties.

"Yeah, we wanna make sure they fit," said Finn, grabbing them from his twin.

"In your dreams, wolf-boy," said Louis.

The smirk on Harry's face at his words made him seethe. He could put Finn down; he couldn't. What was he doing hanging out here anyway? He'd made his public appearance. Why didn't he leave?

Louis deliberately tried to make him feel he didn't belong by ignoring him and kissing all the Five thank you, despite their jeers and rude suggestions. Liam put on some music -- the hard pounding kind the Five loved -- and he danced with them all except Harry. He was surprised to find he was having a good time.

Jay glowed with contentment. She didn't even seem to be disappointed when Harry would only dance one dance with her. Instead she plied him hopefully with Jack Daniel's on the rocks.

Later, Louis was rinsing some glasses in the sink when he felt someone behind him. Arms snaked around him. Hands came down over his hips and squeezed rudely. He recognized the small spider tattoo on the right hand.

"Get off, Zayn," he said, continuing to swish hot water in the tumbler he held.

"Come on. You love it."

"Like hell."

"I don't see you running," he said, and Louis felt Zayn's hot breath on his neck and his teeth testing his flesh.

Louis put the glass on the counter. He twisted slowly around into his accommodating arms, face to face with his arrogant leer.

His grin widened. "I knew it."

Louis smiled back at him. His hand traveled up Zayn's thigh and his eyes grew vacant with lust, his lips parted, waiting for Louis'.

That was when he grabbed his crotch and squeezed. "Ahwooooooo!" he yanked at Louis' wrist with both hands.

"Ah, come on. You love it," Louis said, gripping tighter.

"Lemmego!"

Jay called from the living room. "What's going on?"

Louis glanced toward the door. He was startled to see Harry standing there. His eyes sparkled with laughter and his teeth gleamed white.

Louis released Zayn. "Nothing, Mom. Just fooling around. Huh, Zayn?" Zayn didn't say anything. He turned and sucked in a whimper of embarrassed rage when he saw Harry. He stalked out of the kitchen, his face clenched in anger.  
"You can take care of yourself," Harry said, nodding in appreciation.

"And don't you forget it," Louis answered. He caught the tangy whiff of Harry's sweat as he swept by him, and felt a brief surge of fear mixed in with the heady tingle of sweet defiance. Maybe he would swat Louis for his insolence. Instead he heard a throaty chuckle.

He shouldn't have encouraged the Five. All the next week they were at the door or on the phone. He wouldn't run with them at night, but he finally gave up and spent some daylight time with them. Mostly they hung out and traded jokes with the bikers in front of Tooley's bar. Once they went to the mall, and the five cracked each other up menacing middle-school girls by wiggling long, long tongues at them. Louis left in disgust.

The Five's continual bickering and jostling for rank got on his nerves. It was a relief to pick up the phone one day and hear Aiden's voice.

"Ready for fireworks?" he asked.

"Baby, are you?" Louis replied.

It was still light when Aiden arrived the next evening. He looked sleek and suntanned. Louis wanted to bite the buttons off his shirt.

"I missed you," he said, and handed Louis a small, brightly wrapped package.

Louis turned it over and over in his hands, admiring it as if it were a jewel. Was this the shell he had asked for? No one outside the pack had ever bought him a present. How exquisite and full of promise it was.

"You're supposed to open it," Aiden prompted gently.

"Oh, yeah." Louis sliced through the tape with his nails and peeled off the paper, slowly savoring each crackle. Inside was a velvet box. "Ooooh!" He stroked its plushness, delayed a second more, then opened the box and found a sparkling silver pentagram on a silver chain.

Louis was speechless for a moment; then he burst into laughter. He had given her silver.

When paired with wolf-kind blood, silver burned through the flesh like acid, doing more damage than even his people's amazing powers of healing could stop. That was why silver bullets were often fatal no matter where or how slight the wound. Silver was safe enough to wear as long as it didn't touch an open wound, but among his kind fights were common. Wolf-kind preferred to wear gold, just in case.

A legend told of the double-edged gift of Lady Moon, who gave them the ability to change, but also turned her light into the silver that could kill them if they abused the power. Aiden had given him a double-edged gift: the sign of his people made out of poison.

Aiden looked mystified by Louis' laughter, then hurt. "You don't like it," he said.

I could wear it on our dates, at least, he decided. That seemed safe enough. "Yes, I do like it," he said solemnly. "It's more perfect than I could ever tell you."

 _Because I, too, have a double edge,_ he thought. _And you should run from me as fast as your legs can carry you._


	10. ten

**JULY**

_Thunder Moon_

They left Aiden's car outside Louis' house; it would be hard to find a parking spot close to the middle-school field where the fireworks display was held. The Fourth of July festival had been going on all day, starting with the parade and continuing with clowns, competitions, races, and music. The best places to park had been claimed hours before.

"Let's go the back way," Louis said. "It's quicker."

They cut through his yard and followed the river upstream. The sun was going down and the evening was golden. Louis inhaled deeply, as if he could suck it all in and keep it forever. The rich bursts of odor released by a day of heat mixed with the salty exquisite smell of Aiden swelled him with happiness. As they crashed through the tufted grass to the border mowed alongside the river, Louis felt the urge to run. "Come on," he cried, and took off full of the joy of breath, his limbs as strong as if he danced on the moon.

When he hurdled a wall to an alley behind some apartments Aiden was a minute behind. Louis waited until he caught up. He vaulted over, using both arms, and Louis was sad he'd not leaped as he had, touching nothing but wind. Perhaps he couldn't.

Immediately Louis wanted to give Aiden flight wrapped up in a pretty box like his gift to him. Instead, he gave him a quick hard hug, which made Aiden grunt, then laugh.

The alley led to a bridge. Louis bounced across beside Aiden, eager to run again. His breathing was coarse, but he didn't complain. A drop of sweat hung at the tip of his nose. Louis darted his tongue and slurped it off.

"Yugh!" Aiden wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then grinned.

"You don't get enough exercise," Louis said. "You should run more often."

Aiden rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right."

"No, come on. I'll teach you." Louis set off again at a steady, slower pace. He groaned behind her, but Louis heard him follow. As soon as they were in the baseball field he danced around Aiden, giving him advice about breathing and stride. Louis jogged sedately for a while, enjoying the feel of him running at his side. Aiden's face was flushed, and he puffed a bit, but he would learn.

A sparkle crackled between the trees ahead and for a moment he thought the fireworks had started too soon, but it was only the setting sun caught in the school windows, broken up by leaves shimmied in a sudden evening breeze. Louis glanced behind. The western sky blazed vermilion as if it were drenched in the blood of night, and he choked back a howl of joy.

Louis had to run loose. He took off, driven by excitement into the arms of the dark.

The grass whipped his ankles; the dusk licked his face. If he ran fast enough he could climb invisible stairs right into the stars. Louis reached the twelve-foot chain-link fence at the back of the school and threw himself up. He swarmed over with barely a thought.

When Aiden caught up he rattled like chaos climbing the fence, and panted and scrambled and slid. "When did you go to boot camp?" he managed to gasp when he dropped at Louis' feet. He looked put out but not angry. "Jeez. I didn't know my sweetheart was the Amazon Queen."

Sweetheart. He'd called him his sweetheart. Louis'd been a main squeeze and a piece of tail, but he'd never been a sweetheart before. The word bubbled through him like champagne. Louis threw himself to the ground, giggling. "I'm exhausted," he lied.

Aiden tried to gently wrestle him to his feet but Louis kept on sliding limply from his arms, and soon they were a giggling puppy tumble in the grass. His sweet wet kisses made Louis sure he wasn't angry, and he was out of breath again, but for reasons he couldn't complain about.

They walked into the gathering crowd tangled in each other's arms and hair, their lips unable to stay apart.

The Amoeba was down by the edge of the tarmac playground, spilling into the forbidden field where the fireworks were set up. Some of them called greetings when they saw Aiden and Louis arrive. Kelly smiled tightly, her eyes shallow. Louis leaned back to her regular troupe of gigglers and said something for their ears alone. Louis clicked his teeth in Kelly's direction, wrinkling his nose, and grinned wickedly when Aiden pulled him down with him to a tartan blanket and nuzzled his neck. _Look at me, Kelly,_ Louis gloated silently. _I've got him. You don't. Too bad._

One of the guys handed Aiden a Coke. Aiden sipped, grimaced, and handed it to Louis. "All yours if you want. I've got to drive later." Louis took a swig. The Coke was laced with rum and sent a delicious fire rippling to his toes. Louis drank some more and held the bottle tight.

Every so often a tired-looking cop would walk by and tell them to get their butts back onto the yard, and the Amoeba would mutter and move blankets around and make a great show of activity and eventually not move an inch.

"Yo, buddy!" Aiden's best friend, Peter Quincey, arrived, pounding Aiden's back and calling greetings to everybody. Two of the gigglers peeled away from Kelly and fawned on him. Girls always wanted to touch him and hug him.

Then Bingo and Jem showed up, arguing loudly about which bands sucked. They soon got everyone involved.

"Hey, I've got to take a leak," said Aiden. "I better go now, before the fireworks start." He stood up after kissing Louis' cheek.

"So what do you think of The Purge?" Jem asked him.

"Bunch of whiners," he answered. "They should be drowned to put them out of their misery."

One of the gigglers shrieked indignantly and Quince roared with laughter. This started a whole new round of the argument. The rum made Louis feel lazy and indulgent. He actually agreed with Kelly once.

A firefly bumbled past Louis on a mission of love and the brightness of its tail announced that night had arrived. As if everyone realized this at once, the crowd hushed in expectation. Men scurried around the field, making last-minute checks. Aiden had been gone a long time.

In the sudden quiet, a chorus of howls echoed like a distant song in the trees beyond the portable toilets.

Bingo smirked. "Someone's having fun."

"Yeah," Louis agreed, and the fine hair on his spine prickled. Louis stared grimly over the heads of the crowd. Aiden was out there alone. The blood in Louis' veins turned cold. "I think I need to pee, too," he announced to no one in particular. Louis set his bottle down and hurried off in the same direction Aiden had gone.

Louis wove through the islands of families and friends stretched out with their coolers and hampers and kids, and tried not to step on the fingers and drinks that spread into the paths that led through the mess. Then he was out the other side.

Louis could smell the toilets before he even came close. They'd been used all day, and now the rank stench of chemicals mixed with urine and feces made a battlefield of the air. His nose pinched in distaste as he skirted the metal booths stenciled with the word Port-o-let in luminous orange, looking for signs of Aiden, or of the Five.

Someone's cough echoed inside one of the putrid sarcophagi, but it was too deep to be Aiden's. The door of a toilet opened, then crashed shut behind a stranger. The rest of the toilets didn't seem occupied.

Louis heard faint movement in the woods. What if he'd decided that the toilets stank too badly and had gone to piss in the woods? Louis'd have thought it sensible any other night, but tonight, with the Five on the prowl . . .

Louis slunk silently into the trees, his eyes wide and luminous. _He'd better be safe,_ Louis thought. Without even thinking, he lengthened his nails, and the muscles of his limbs clenched with power.

The moon was only a sliver in the western sky. The woods were deep with shadows. Somewhere behind him was an eager crowd, waiting for the night to bloom with fire, but somehow their voices were muffled by the dark. Even the crickets held their breaths.

A staccato crackle came from the river -- firecrackers. A dog barked far away. Sweat trickled from Louis' armpits down past his chest. Louis trod on tiptoes, his feet remembering paws.

There was a rustling off to his right. Someone was pushing between the rhododendron bushes. He hummed cheerfully. Louis almost breathed a sigh of relief, but then he recognized the voice.

"Zayn." He froze in the shadows. Something almost as big as he was flung over his shoulder. He clutched it possessively.

Louis placed the tune he'd been humming. It was an Oingo Boingo song. The words went walking with a dead man over my shoulder.

"What have you got there?" Louis demanded, fear fluttering in his belly.

Zayn's arms tightened around his load. "Nothing." He backed away a step.

"You shithead." Louis advanced on him. His heart thumped with dread.

"It's mine," he growled. He slid his kill from his shoulder and let it crash into old, dead leaves. He crouched, ready for combat, in front of it.

 _Great Moon, I'm right,_ Louis thought. _It's a body. Not Aiden,_ he begged. Louis'd kill Zayn if it was.

"I'll share if you're nice to me," he added, a new note of cunning in his voice.

"Show me," he coaxed. "I want to see if it's worth my time."

"Ha, you're lying, Lou," he spat. His eyes glittered and narrowed with malice. "Want to see if it's your meat-boy, Lou?" The asshole was toying with him. Louis took another quick step forward but he blocked him, laughing. Louis darted to the right, but Zayn was in front of him again.

"Does Boo want his plaything?" he taunted, and Louis wanted to shove his pointy teeth down his throat.

Louis feinted to the left; then, before he could recover, hit Zayn head-on and knocked him down. Distantly the crowd cheered with the first thunder of fireworks. Louis scrambled over Zayn as he thrashed, elbowing his neck, kneeing him in the stomach, and crawled into the bushes.

In an orange burst of light he saw brown eyes already glazed over with an opalescent sheen. Brown eyes in a furred face. A large dog with its throat torn open lay on the ground.

Zayn scrambled to his feet, laughing. "Had you going, didn't I?"

His laughter was echoed from the trees, and the rest of the Five slunk into the clearing -- Finn, Willem, Liam, and skittery Niall. Their faces flickered with multicolored light for a moment, etching them with ghoulish shadows. Had they all been out there watching, laughing at him?

The gaping throat leered up at Louis, black and clotted.

"Smell yummy, Lou?" Zayn mocked. "Think you might like a little taste, since it's not your boyfriend?"

Louis spat a curse at him as he stood up. It was punctuated by another crash in the sky. Louis walked right up and knocked him flying with a cuff to the side of the face that left claw marks.

Willem gasped, and Niall ran back to the bushes giggling hysterically. Finn helped Zayn up while Liam glanced back and forth between Louis and Zayn, nervously licking his lips.

Zayn wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand. "You think you're different from us," he snarled. "But you're not. We know whowe are, Louis. And we know what we want. We don't run away from it. You're sick, Louis, if you think you can play human."

He snapped his fingers. "Niall, get your ass back here and help Liam carry this." The Five fell in silently behind Zayn and followed him into the woods. Only Willem looked back.

"I'm so impressed," Louis yelled after them.

 _I know who I am,_ he thought. _How dare he say I don't? I love being loup-garou. I adore the sweet change and the beauty it brings me in the night. When I hunt, I hunt wild prey by the laws of the Goddess. I don't kill pets for the fun of it._

A machine-gun rattle above made him look up to see shooting stars between the leaves. A warbling whistle came fast on its heels and a fountain of fire dripped red in the sky. _I'm missing it,_ he thought.

Louis raced back to the Amoeba, winding through the color-bathed crowd. Louis found Aiden waiting, and his heart leaped at the sight of him.

"Where did you get to?" Aiden asked. He hugged Louis.

"I could say the same." Louis didn't hug back. Now he was safe he could be angry with him -- for a moment anyway, until he struggled to make amends with kisses. Then, wrapped in his arms, he oohed and aahed with the faceless multitude around him, made one with them under the bursts of chrysanthemum light.

But danger lurked for the crowd out in the wood, and he prayed to the Moon that all who watched with him came home safe this night. The Five killed a human once. Did they still have the taste?

The thunder crescendoed. The night was full of whistles and the whoosh of man-made comets. Smoke singed the air and was sharp in his throat, and when he saw sparks falling, he remembered another night more than a year before. _The fire was my fault, too,_ he thought. _I should have told my father that Axel and the Five were running wild._

Louis buried his face in his human boy's shoulder and clung to him to suffocate his own pain. Aiden kissed his hair, and the tremor of his laughter vibrated through Louis' chest. He was full of rushing blood and smiles and dreams -- things his father would never have again.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, too soft for him to hear, but those he spoke to were all dead.


	11. eleven

On their way back to Louis' house Aiden stopped by the river. "Don't go home yet," he asked, so they made a nest in the knee-high grass and gazed at the sky.

"Isn't midnight magical?" Louis asked, and stretched his arms to the stars.

"Not real magic," Aiden said. "I wish it was. Life is a drag most of the time -- birth, school, work, death -- you know. I wish something magic would happen."

You want magic? I could give you magic, he thought.

"What kind of magic?" she asked. "Like finding a door to a magical country? Or a coin that grants wishes? Or meeting a witch?"

Aiden laughed. "All of the above."

"What if she's a wicked witch?"

"Maybe I'd find the good in her."

"What about vampires?"

"I dunno. Maybe there's some good ones, too."

"What about horny werewolves?" Louis said.

Aiden slid his arms around her. "Now you're being silly."

They sank into the long fur of the river meadow, entwined with each other. The smell of sweet crushed hay filled the air.

"You're wild," Aiden mumbled woozily into the cleft between Louis' collarbones breasts before he kissed the skin there.

"Um-hmmm." Louis stroked his hair, reveling in the way he'd made Aiden drunk with wanting him.

He kissed Louis' mouth, and he returned the kiss fiercely, pressing hard against him, holding him tight by his shirt. Louis' fingers found a circle behind his pocket -- the rolled rim of a rubber encased in foil. A thrill ran through him so sharp and delicious that for a moment he thought he was changing.

With trembling fingers she unbuttoned Aiden's shirt. She smoothed her hands up his firm abdomen and across his chest. His flesh was burning hot and oh so sleek and alien to Louis' touch. He tested Aiden's neck with his teeth and tried not to bite too hard. His breath became ragged.

A chorus of howls echoed down the river. A cherry bomb burst in the distance. Or was it a gun? Louis froze. "Ow! Your nails." Aiden pulled back.

He quickly sheathed his claws. "I'm sorry. I . . ." Aiden laughed wickedly and reached for him again. "You're  wild." Louis felt a vibration in the ground. He struggled to his knees while Aiden held on and murmured in protest. Out in the night a dark mass swept though the grass, coming their way. "What's wrong?" Aiden asked and rose to kneel beside him. "It's nothing," he said, and flung his arms around him and carried him to the ground. _That can't be the pack,_ he thought. _They wouldn't run in town. But there were too many to be only the Five._

Aiden rolled over on top of him, and Louis tried to fake interest. He had to keep him occupied. If he saw what hunted tonight, he might panic and run; if he ran he was prey.  
The grass hissed louder and louder as if a storm approached. Voiceless they came -- many paws softly thundering. They passed to the right. "What the . . ." Aiden sat up. Louis snaked an arm around his neck and dragged him back. "Stay down," he told him. "Dogs. They're crazy in packs."

Aiden looked startled. "Jeez, there's a lot." The musk of them filled the air -- familiar scents. Astrid was in the lead. Damn the bitch. What was she thinking to lead a run this large through the middle of Riverview?

After Astrid came Lucien Dafoe, Zayn's father, stinking of drink. Zayn was rapidly edging him out. The rest of the Five were there, but so were others, mostly Astrid's age-mates, no elders, and all male. Niall brought up the rear. Louis could hear him pant with an asthmatic wheeze. Then they were past, racing upstream, devouring the night.

"Wow," Aiden said. "For a moment I thought it was the wild hunt -- Herne the Hunter chasing down the damned."

  
Louis could feel the goosebumps on his arm. "People shouldn't let their dogs run loose like that. Maybe we should call the pound."

"At this time of night?" Louis said.

He grimaced humorously. "Guess not." A shout came from up the river. "Scared someone." Aiden laughed.

Unlike Aiden, Louis could hear that someone scramble down the bank. His heart leaped to his throat, but the pack didn't turn to follow the human.

"We should get out of here," he said. "They might come back." And who knew what they'd do if they got the urge for blood on the muzzle? He had to send Aiden home.

Aiden chuckled. "It's not like you to be nervous."

"What do you know about what I'm like?" Louis snapped. He was sorry instantly, yet irritated by how chastened Aiden looked. Couldn't he fight back? "I'm sorry," he said. "But I don't think it's safe."

  
He tried to pull Louis down with him again, unwilling to give up, but the spell was broken, leaving him frustrated and angry. "I have to get home," he lied, removing Aiden's hands and standing up. "My mother will worry."

  
"Oh, man," Aiden said. He climbed awkwardly to his feet, adjusting his clothes. "All right," he grumbled, and he saw him touch his pocket briefly as if bidding his plans goodbye.

  
 _Damn. Damn. Damn,_ he thought.

"What do you mean, tell Harry?" Louis demanded. It was two in the morning and Rudy had just come home. Jay was still out the Moon knew where. "Why him? He hasn't won the Ordeal yet." Louis had decided not to keep quiet if he saw things going wrong again, but he hadn't expected to tell Harry.

Rudy paced the living room. His sturdy compact form and firm stride should have been comforting. "And what did you expect me to do?"

  
"Talk to Astrid. Make her stop."

Rudy laughed bitterly. "That'll be the day."

"So why would she listen to Harry, then?" Louis asked.

"Because she respects him."

"Because she wants to screw him, you mean."

Rudy stared her down with piercing gray eyes that made Louis feel ashamed. "She respects him because  
she's afraid of him. Power's the only thing Astrid understands. She isn't sure how far he'll go." He paused. "And neither am I."

  
"Then why tell him?"

  
"As far as I can see, he's the only option we've got right now. We can't use a leader who wants to rule with his brains but not his teeth."

  
Louis rose to his feet. "My father led with his brains; you mean he wasn't a good leader?"

Rudy ran a callused hand through his hair. His eyes looked sad. "Your father was the best leader we could have had for the time we had him, but this is a time of unrest. We need a leader who understands the power of his jaws."

"I'm tired of violence."

  
Rudy nodded. "But it doesn't matter what we're tired of, we've got it all the same. You would have never moved the Five so quietly out of West Virginia if Harry hadn't beat the sass out of them."

  
 _Yeah_ , thought Louis. He'd taken them on in the charred ruins of the inn yard when they were set on waging a stupid, hopeless war against the town. Zayn was knocked silly and the others bloodied, but not a scratch on Harry. He'd threatened to kill any one of them that moved three paces from the convoy going to Maryland. Smeared with ashes, he'd strutted afterward and Louis had hated him for it, even though he'd have beaten the Five himself if he could have. His father was barely dead, and Harry was taking control. He wasn't a leader; Louis' father was a leader. His father had dignity.

  
"And when you all arrived," Rudy continued, "Harry was one of the first to get a job and put all his money toward getting others settled while he crashed on people's floors or in the woods."

  
 _And boy did he smell like it,_ Louis thought. Nothing like a welder with no place to bathe. "So you're gonna support Harry at the Ordeal and not go for it yourself," he said.

  
"Yeah, guess so. Now, time for bed, babe. Too late to do anything tonight."

  
Harry's black-and-silver motorcycle was in the parking lot of Tooleys bar the next night, exactly as Rudy had guessed. Rudy went in to find him while Louis waited outside, his arms folded, his foot tapping.

  
A pair of bikers in cut-off denim jackets over bare chests came out of the bar. The tall one did a double take on Louis. He grabbed his crotch and issued him a very specific invitation. The other one laughed as if that was the funniest joke he'd ever heard, and his gut jiggled.

  
Louis gave them the finger.

  
"Hey, you're not too friendly," the tall biker complained, changing direction to walk slowly toward him. The smile had left his face. "Ain't you got no respect?"

  
His buddy trailed him. His grin was mean. _Oh, shit_ , Louis thought. "But tell you what, maybe we could kiss and make up," said the tall biker.

"I'd rather kiss a slug," Louis said, his temper flaring. He regretted his words when he saw the biker's hands ball into fists. His skull ring glittered ominously.  
Louis felt his legs knot with the first stage of the change. _Control it,_  he coached himself. _Only enough to put some muscle on._ He didn't doubt for a moment that he could take them if he changed fully, but he couldn't do that now, could he? A couple of good strong smacks would change the biker's mind.

"I see you've met my brother." Louis recognized Harry's throaty growl.

The tall biker froze for a second, a look of panic on his face; then he turned. "Hey, Haz! Your brother, man. Wow. Real pretty boy. I wuz just tellin' him. Yeah. Your brother. Wow."

  
"Uh, come on, Skull. We got a party to get to," his friend chimed in. When they turned the corner Harry and Rudy burst out laughing.

"I could handle it," Louis said, annoyed at his amusement.

"I know, baby," he answered, surprising Louis. "And any other time I would have gladly stood and watched, but Rudy tells me you've got news for me."

"I'll smack him around another time, then," Louis said.

They walked farther out into the shadowed parking lot. "So, what's the word -- little brother?" he asked.

  
Louis wanted to cut him down for keeping up that brother crap, but the smoldering look in Harry's eyes made him bite back his sarcastic response. "Astrid led a run along the river last night," he said.

"She did, did she?" His tone was casual but Louis saw a slight tic in his cheek. "And who was on this run?" While he listed them Harry listened with head bowed, stroking the small scar on his lip. There was silence when he'd finished. Louis glanced at Rudy, but he was watching Harry, a worried look on his face.

  
Finally Harry spoke. "I guess I'll be paying Miss Astrid a little visit," he said softly. He looked up and his pupils caught the glare from a distant streetlight -- they glowed red.  
 _What have I started?_ Louis thought.


	12. twelve

Louis dumped his shopping bag of new paints at the base of the stairs. It fell over, and an economy-sized tube of burnt umber, fat as a sausage, rolled out and rocked gently on the hardwood floor at the edge of the hall rug. The house was so quiet that the muted rumble of the tube's brief passage echoed in his ears. _Where's Jay?_ Louis wondered.

Monday was her day off, but no music blared through the house, and no smell of dinner wafted through the air. Louis' answer came when he walked into the living room and was startled to find his mother sitting on the floor surrounded by photographs, more tumbling out of an upturned shoe box beside her. Jay looked up with tears in her eyes. "I couldn't remember his face," she said. Louis sank to the floor beside Jay, his mouth tense with worry. There were pictures of his father spread all over the rug: _Dad laughing, Dad chopping wood, Dad in the kitchen at the inn, making sauce._

"I tried so hard to forget him so losing him wouldn't hurt anymore," Jay said, "and then today I thought of him and couldn't see him. It was like I'd torn away a part of me and crippled myself. Like I'd looked into a mirror and couldn't see my reflection." The tears rolled down her cheeks. Louis ached to see his mother this upset. He didn't know what was worse, the hard glittering jewel her mother had become this year, or the heartbroken woman beside her now. He couldn't think of anything to say. Instead he picked up a picture of himself at age three, in OshKosh overalls and nothing else, at his father's side as he weeded in the herb garden. He'd been "helping" him, and he could still hear in his mind his patient voice saying, "No honey, not that one." He'd had to say it over and over.

  
"Dad would have straightened everything out, wouldn't he?" Louis said. "We wouldn't be in such a mess if he was around." 

Jay shook her head. "I don't know."

  
Shock cut through Louis like a sharp little knife. "Sure he would. He'd know how to keep Astrid in line. He'd stop anything bad happening."

  
"But he didn't, did he?" Jay said. "The inn burned. People died. If he'd lived, he'd be challenged as unfit."

  
"That's not true!" Louis cried.

  
"You know it's true," Jay said. "In his wolf-skin he was as strong as any of them, but he was a gentle person in many ways. He'd feel so bad about failing he'd probably step aside for someone else without a fight." Jay was right, but for a moment Louis hated his mother for saying it. Jay didn't see Louis' anger; she was absently shuffling the photos around on the rug as if she could read the future in them like Tarot cards. "Maybe Rudy's right. We need a different kind of leader now. One who doesn't hesitate to hurt if he has to, for the good of all." She reached out a trembling finger and touched the lips of a face that would be nowhere now, ever, except on a square of Kodak paper. "But for his time," she whispered, "oh, he was the best."

Jay's shoulders heaved in helpless sobs and Louis' anger shriveled. He put his arms around his mother, buried his face in Jay's hair, and cried with her in dissonant duet. Jay clung to him. There was nothing they could do. He was gone and the world was an alien landscape.

"Let's go out," Jay said abruptly, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. "Let's cheer ourselves up." She grabbed Louis by the shoulders, then planted a quick kiss on her son's nose. "We'll treat ourselves to dinner. We deserve it." She leaped to her feet. Louis, momentarily confused by his mother's change of mood, didn't answer. "We'll go to Tooley's and see if any of the pack are there," Jay said. "But I can only afford burgers."

"I can't do that," Louis said. "I'm underage."

"Nonsense," Jay insisted. "As long as you don't drink, no one's gonna throw you out. Especially since you will definitely improve the décor." Jay smiled proudly at her son. "You look just like me."

Louis couldn't help chuckling. Jay was her usual arrogant self again. Maybe it would be fun at that. Maybe he'd enjoy some roughhousing and teasing in the local bar. Maybe he'd like the feel of his palm across the cheeks of some fresh young fool who'd only laugh if off. "Sure, Mom. Let's kick ass."

"Its a deal," Jay said. "Now I gotta go wash my face. I know I look like shit." At the door, she paused and turned back to Louis. There was a slight tremble back in her lower lip. "Thanks, my precious," she said.

There was a scattering of people among the tables and booths at Tooley's; some bikers were at the bar, and four men gathered around the large-screen television watching the Orioles lose. No pack, Louis thought until they were greeted by an enthusiastic howl from a shadowed corner booth. "Watch it, Bucky," Jay warned, hand on hip, but Louis knew she would have been disappointed if he hadn't noticed.

  
"You ain't workin' tonight," growled the owner, Terry O'Toole, from behind the bar. "What you doin' here?"

  
"Can't tear myself away from you, honey," Jay said, and slid oh so sweet and slinky into a chair.

  
Louis saw Tooley color slightly, and saw the twitch of satisfaction on his lips. "He ain't drinkin'," he snapped, pointing at Louis with a dish towel.

  
Louis shrugged. "Not me." He sat down with his mother and crossed his legs in a way he knew made them look a mile long.

  
"I know you're under twenty-one," Tooley added, as if someone had argued with him, and he began to polish the water stains vigorously off a glass no one would look at too closely anyway.

  
"Hi, Brenda," Jay said to the waitress who appeared. "We'd like two orders of grease on a bun with all the trimmings. A draft for me and a Shirley Temple for my baby."

  
"Make that a Coke," Louis said.

Brenda winked. "Want me to goose that?"

Louis shook his head. "Nah. The old lady needs to keep her job."

"Old lady!" Jay squealed, and Brenda left giggling.

It wasn't until they were wiping the crumbs from their mouths that more members of the pack came drifting in, some still yawning from after-work naps, others ready to raise the devil. Tooley's was the place to go, the place to find out where the party was.

Most of the wolf-kind came to Louis and Jay's table and greeted them. There was no new leader yet, and Jay was the widowed queen. And a tasty morsel, too, Louis thought. He could see it in the eyes of the males and the tight smiles of their mates. A female on the loose was a dangerous creature; she could challenge another bitch for a male she fancied. Some of those male eyes strayed to Louis, too, and he preened at the thought of being a threat. He and Jay exchanged knowing looks, their lips plump, curved, and smug.

The group around the TV was larger now, swelled by wolf-kind. Two were males who'd run with Astrid. A cheer went up. The game had turned. Louis noted a couple of bikers sauntering over to their table. It was the same two from the other night -- Skull and his sidekick. _They never learn,_  he thought.

  
Before the bikers reached the table Bucky was there with two of his buddies -- Jay's age-mates still in their prime. They loomed, they tightened their fists to make their biceps bulge, and they grinned a toothy invitation. The bikers swerved and headed for the exit instead. It was no secret which males usually won any barroom brawl at Tooley's.

As the bikers reached the door it slammed open and they parted hastily to either side. Lucien Dafoe came stumbling through. He was a mess. Blood covered half his face and still dripped from a gash on his forehead. He clutched his left arm, which dangled uselessly from his side. His shirt front was in tatters, and whatever had shredded it had also shredded his chest. Cotton stuck in the wounds like papier-mché.

  
Jay rose and Louis with her, his claws unsheathing, heart pounding. Whoever attacked them, he'd be ready. Around the room the pack stood.

"What the fuck happened to you, man?" Skull asked. The other biker gawked through the door. He flinched when a howling devil stormed in -- Astrid.

  
"You coward!" she shrieked at Lucien. "You piece of shit!" The bikers looked at each other, shock giving way to sniggers.

"What's going on here?" Tooley stepped in front of the bar, a scarred old baseball bat in his hands. A couple of regulars moved to back him. "I don't want you bringing trouble into my place," Tooley said.

"Chill, man," said Bucky. "Family business."

He pointed a finger at the bikers and they left in a hurry. "I'll get you for laughing," Lucien called after them. It was more whine than threat. The pack drew in from around the room and circled Astrid and Lucien.

"Come on," said Jay, gripping Louis' arm tight with excitement, and they joined the others. Two human women slipped hurriedly out the door. A man trailed after them, casting curious glances back. Some of the others around the bar looked like they would be happy to follow. "Who did this?" Jay asked for all of them.

"Who do you think, you asshole?" Astrid spat, and Louis wanted to smack her.

"Harry," Lucien said, almost blubbering.

"That bastard, Harry." A hum swept around the circle. _Am I responsible for the state he's in?_ Louis wondered. He felt slightly sick.

"Why would Harry do that?" Bucky demanded. "

"'Cus he's power mad," Astrid said. "He wants to beat us into following him. Do you want a leader who'd treat us that way?"

Louis would have agreed with her any other time, but it was Astrid who had risked exposing the whole pack. That was worse than being a bully. She couldn't lead a run that size in the suburbs and expect no one to notice, and if humans noticed. . . Louis looked around at the humans anxiously. This was too public.

  
Jay echoed his thoughts. "This isn't the place, Astrid."

"Who cares what you think, bitch?" Astrid answered.

"I do," said Bucky. His eyes were narrow and dangerous, his clean-shaven face now slightly shadowed.  
More than half the circle muttered agreement. Lucien grabbed his side, moaned, and collapsed to the floor. He sat there looking vaguely surprised, a bubble of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"Ain't one of you gonna get him to a hospital?" Tooley called over.

  
"Yeah, come on," Louis agreed. They should get out of there before someone phoned the police. They wouldn't be going to the hospital, though; they would take him to Aunt Persia. One of Bucky's friends put his hands under Lucien's armpits and hauled him up. Bucky grabbed Lucien's legs. They carried him to the door.

The door where Harry stood. Bucky stopped dead. "Hey, man," he said quietly. Harry only nodded. He stood there a moment longer, silent and dark against the glare of a streetlight outside. His fathomless eyes took in the people around the room, daring anyone to challenge him.

"It's not healthy to party with Astrid right now," he finally said in his subterranean growl. "I'd advise against it."

  
Louis checked out the others who'd run with Astrid. Their faces were pale and grim. He almost felt sorry for them. _What now?_  he thought, but when he looked back at the door, Harry was gone.


	13. thirteen

"Where are you going, looking so pretty?" Jay asked.

"I'm meeting Aiden," Louis told her.

The smile left Jay's face. "Baby, I know you're lonely for kids your own age, but I wish you'd be careful. If you gotta wag your tail, wag it for one of the Five."

"The Five are jerks."

"But they're our jerks. You know what to expect from them."

"I know what to expect from Aiden." Louis thought of his gentle caresses and his dreams of magic.

"But he'll never know you, not really." Louis opened his mouth to speak, then clamped it shut. Jay must have read the argument in his eyes. "Don't even think about telling him about yourself," she said. "That would be the stupidest thing you ever did in your life. If the pack found out, you'd be castout in case you brought danger back to the den. How would you like to lose everyone you care about and be alone in the world? And if what you did led to death ..."

Louis started toward the door. "I don't want a lecture."

"Honey, I'm just worried," Jay said. "I get the creeps each time I see that silver around your neck." Louis' fingers flew to the pentagram. He had worn it for every date since Aiden had given it to him. "Listen," Jay said. "We'll be moving soon. Life will get normal again." She followed Louis to the door.

"You'll have your choice of men. You're beautiful. Don't throw yourself away on someone who can't appreciate you."

"What makes you think he can't appreciate me?" Louis left the house and slammed the door.

It was one of those steaming days when air clogged the throat like wet cotton wool. _Bloody Moon,_ Louis thought. He wished he hadn't insisted that Aiden not pick him up, but he wanted to keep him away from his house. The smell of the dusty hot sidewalk burned his nose; the sun scorched the top of his head.

Up by Dobb's Corner Store he ran into Zayn with two six-packs of beer in his arms. He wore a clean Nine Inch Nails T-shirt and part of his hair was pulled up in a topknot so he looked like some pagan chief.

"Going to a formal event, then?" Louis asked him.

"Got me a honey," Zayn said.

Louis rolled his eyes. "And who's she when she's conscious?"

"You'll see," he said, and sauntered off chuckling. It wasn't worth puzzling over. Louis walked on, pleased Zayn was distracted from his insistent pursuit of him. By the time he reached Aidens her T-shirt clung to his back and the hair at the nape of his neck was wet. He pushed his leopard-splotched sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose for the millionth time. As he walked up the front path Aiden came rushing out. Before the door closed he heard Aiden's father yelling.

"Don't think you can run away from it, my lad."

Aiden grabbed Louis' arm. "Come on," he urged, and tugged Louis toward his car. Excited by his firm grip, Louis yanked the door open and swung himself in. Aiden ran around and climbed into the driver's seat.

The front door opened again. Aiden's father filled the entrance, his face almost purple. "Get back here, young man." Aiden ground the gears, and they peeled out despite the clanking protests of the old car.

Aiden hit the dashboard with a fist. "Damn!" Louis jumped. He'd never seen him this way. He gritted his teeth against the jouncing ride and clung to the sides of her seat. Louis was sure the car would rattle itself to bits, but he let Aiden work out his rage.

  
He took a sharp corner into a strip mall entrance, slamming him toward the parking brake, then against the door. Finally he pulled into a space in front of a tawdry row of shops dominated by a dollar bargain store with lurid Day-Glo posters plastered across its windows. "That was some ride," Louis said.

Aiden glanced over, embarrassment in his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"So what's the story?" Louis asked, trying to sound casual, giving him permission to lie if that made him feel safe.

"My parents want me to see a shrink."

Louis' eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"They think I'm weird."

"My dear," Louis said, reaching over to squeeze his knee. "They haven't seen weird."

He smiled and covered Louis' hand with his. "Thanks."

Louis hadn't realized how tense his anger had made him until he'd unclenched at the sight of his smile. "So, how weird do they think you are?" he asked, wiping a drop of sweat from his nose.

"They think I'm a Satanist."

"A what?" Louis was amused.

"A Satanist. Just because I'm interested in the unknown. I mean, how would anyone learn anything if they weren't curious? How would scientists make discoveries? They're so narrow-minded. They're pissed off because I'm different from them. We all have the right to be different, don't we?"

Louis nodded in sympathy. But did he realize how different people could be; he who wrote of exchanging skin for a pelt of brindle luxury? Would he grant Louis the right to be different? "What brought this on?" he asked.

  
"My aunt sent them some stupid book about teenagers listening to heavy metal records backwards and committing suicide. That and a pamphlet called 'Ten Signs Your Child Has Sold His Soul to the Devil.'"

Louis burst out laughing before he could stop himself. "But that's ridiculous."

"I know. I don't even like heavy metal." Even Aiden couldn't suppress a laugh now. "You always make me feel better, Louis. You never judge me. You accept me."

Louis wound his fingers into the hair at Aiden's temples and pulled his lips toward his. "Yes," he whispered the moment before their lips met. When would he realize how far he would accept him?

Louis' claws, unbidden, traced promises on his back. The hothouse heat of the car made Aiden's body wonderfully pungent. He wished they were somewhere, anywhere, besides the front seat of his car. Should he wait for Aiden to suggest they find somewhere secluded? _To hell with waiting_ , he decided. _I'll take him down to the river._

  
"Aren't you coming in?" a voice asked. Aiden pulled away abruptly, and Louis looked up to see Kelly peering in the driver's-side window. "Uh, oh yeah, Kelly, in a minute," Aiden said.

"Where?" Louis asked, not bothering to conceal his irritation.

"For pizza, of course," Kelly answered. She gestured to Mama Lucia's Pizza right in front of their parking space. Her smile was too sweet.

Louis stared balefully over Aiden's shoulder. He knew Aiden would be too embarrassed to leave now. _I may kill you for this_ , he thought at Kelly.

Kelly must have read his thoughts. She backed away from the car. "Coming?"

"Guess we better go in," Aiden said reluctantly. Inside, a subset of the Amoeba sat around two tables dragged together under a ceiling fan that barely moved the thick air.

"Hey, Louis," Jem said. Louis decided his haircut wasn't so bad once you got used to it.

Others called their greetings, and Bingo toasted Louis with her Coke. "Wow, Louis! Still beautiful!" Peter Quincey exclaimed as if surprised, and the girl who hung on him hit him in the arm.

The gang talked about videos while they ate, and Aiden and Quince argued amiably over something that had happened years ago in grade school. Aiden's left thigh pressed tightly against Louis' right, and he yearned to be alone with him. He piled his hair on top of his head, hoping to catch a breeze on her neck from the fan. There was no relief from the heat. He thought again about the riverbank, but realized now what a stupid idea that had been. He couldn't be sure the Five wouldn't be prowling there.

  
They hung around outside the pizza place after they'd eaten while they discussed what movie they might go and see. The sky in the west was an angry-red, and the heat wouldn't leave with the night. An air-conditioned theater sounded good to Louis. He would find them a nice dark corner.

  
A motorcycle roared down the access road and came to a stop in front of the automotive parts store down the strip. Louis recognized it at once. Harry, helmetless, clad in jeans and tank top, silenced the growling machine.

He saw Louis, raised his eyebrows slightly, and stayed seated, staring at him with an inscrutable look on his face.

 _So what!_  he told Harry silently and turned away. "What do you think, Louis?" Aiden asked. "Killer death robots or sloppy love story?"

Before he could answer he saw a look of apprehension slide over Kelly's face, and Jem took a step back. Firm hands descended on Louis' shoulders. "Harry," he said without turning.

"Hi, babe," came his rumbling voice from somewhere above Louis' head.

Aiden looked annoyed and hurt at the same time. "A friend of my mother's," Louis told him, then, "Get your hands off me," to Harry.

His hands tightened on his shoulders instead, and he felt Harry's breath on his cheek as he bent his head closer. "Let him go," he whispered in Louis' ear.

Then the pressure of his hands was gone. He turned to see Harry strolling toward the parts store. _How dare he?_ There was a moments silence; then Bingo hummed her appreciation. "Ummm-mmm. Buns of steel, absolutely."

"Who was that?" one of the gigglers asked breathlessly.

"A jerk," Louis said, putting his arm around Aiden.

"He hasn't been bothering you, has he?" Quince asked, making a fist. Louis was touched by his concern. "No, he just irritates me," he said. Quince wouldn't last a second against Harry.

Aiden squeezed Quince's arm and shook him affectionately. "Come on, you guys," he said. "We've got a movie to see."


	14. fourteen

When Aiden called the next night he had bad news. "Don't tell anyone," he begged. "They'll never let me live it down. Guys don't get grounded."

 _Oh, yeah_ , Louis thought. _Like, who am I going to tell?_   He didn't imagine he'd see the Amoeba without Aiden to take him out with them. "How long?" he asked.

"Until I can get my mother to tell my dad to lay off."

 _How can he allow them to restrict him like that?_ Louis thought. _What was wrong with him?_ No one could cage Louis up. "That's awful," he said. "What are you going to do?"

"Paint my room, supposedly," he answered. "Dad's stacked a pyramid of cans outside my door. He said twenty-five coats should do it."

"What about work? “

"Oh, he's got that timed." Aiden's voice was brittle. "I can go to work but if I come home five minutes late he's phoning the courts to have me officially declared an uncontrollable minor."

Louis wasn't sure what he meant, but the threat sounded terrible. "Can he do that?"

"God knows, Lou, but I don't feel like testing him. I thought he'd lighten up when he retired from the army. Fat chance. Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't blown up in Vietnam before I was born and they sent home a robot replica."

Louis chuckled. "That would make you a cyborg."

"Huh?"

"Half human, half robot."

Aiden let out a delighted yelp of laughter, but it was cut short by someone calling out to him in the distance. "Gotta go. Parents home," he said, and Louis found himself holding a dead line.

Louis was surprised when Bingo showed up at his door that evening. "Thought you might like some company since your boyfriend's in the slammer," Bingo said.

"How did you know?" Louis asked.

"I phoned up to see what was on for the night and his old man told me," Bingo replied. "Well, actually," she continued, "what he said was, 'He's not spending any time with you weirdos until he cleans up his act.'"

Louis laughed. He recognized the tone of voice. "Want to come in?" Thank goodness Jay was at work. He could trust Rudy to be a gentleman.

Bingo poked her head through the door and looked around. "Neat house, but I got Jem in the car and a stack of videos. Wanna come to my place and OD on popcorn?"

Louis hesitated. He wouldn't have Aiden to hide behind. What if he didn't know how to join in? What if he made a fool of himself? B _ut this is what you wanted, you coward,_  he told himself. He ignored the flutter in his stomach and nodded. "Yeah. Thanks. I'd love to."

"There, I told Jem you'd come," Bingo said triumphantly. Louis wondered why Jem had thought he wouldn't.

"Let me grab my bag," he said.

Bingo's parents were home, which explained why the entire Amoeba hadn't descended. "I told them it was their duty to go out so I could throw wild parties, but they wouldn't listen," Bingo said as she led the way upstairs to a small room that had been turned into a den for her use.

"Bingo's lair," said Jem, snapping his skinny fingers.

"Mom said she understood my need for privacy, but she was damned if I was going to entertain boys in my bedroom," Bingo explained as she flopped onto an overstuffed couch.

"Put that one in," she ordered, jabbing a video at Jem, who almost dropped the popcorn but obeyed slavishly. "As if I couldn't do the same things she worried about in here," she said to Louis, and winked.

Louis began to think he needn't worry about keeping up his end of the conversation, but what did Jem feel about him coming along? It soon became clear, however, that Bingo and Jem were merely buddies.

The movie was wonderful -- a real grade-B, drive-in clunker -- and Bingo and Jem immediately began a sarcastic commentary on what was happening. "Hey, man, I'm having a bad hair day," Jem said in a falsetto as a zombie with clumps of hair missing shambled across the screen.

"I may be the president of the Hair Club for Zombies," Bingo added, parodying a well-known TV commercial.

"But I'm also a client," Jem and Louis chimed in together. The three of them fell about laughing.

"Your life is a bad hair day," Bingo said to Jem, and they screamed with laughter again. Louis had to wipe tears from her eyes. "You're all right, girl," Bingo said, and a flood of warmth surged through Louis. Halfway through the movie the phone rang. Bingo paused the tape and grabbed the receiver. "Yeah? Oh, hi, Kelly." Louis stiffened. "Oh, hangin' out movie bingeing," Bingo said. "Yeah? No. Did they? Yeah, I heard. Phoned his house. Yeah, again. His dad's a real prick."

It was obvious the subject was Aiden. Louis picked up one of the cassettes and tried to look as if he wasn't listening, but Bingo's next words made him glance over anyway.  
"Well, why don't you ask him, Kelly? He's sitting right next to me." Her tone was mockingly sweet. "Bye-ee," Bingo sang in response to whatever Kelly said at the other end of the line, and she hung up. "That girl can be such a bitch," Bingo said.

"What did she say? " Jem asked. Louis never would have.

He waited for Bingo's answer warily. Bingo flung a hand up as if dismissing Kelly's words. "She was like, 'I guess Louis won't be going out this weekend,' only she sounded happy about it, you know? She thinks you don't have any friends or something."

"She's jealous," Jem said, reaching for the remote.

"Oh, duh!" Bingo responded, then to Louis, "She was like that to me before you came along, you know. I've been friends with Aiden forever, only when Ms. Me-First decided to claim him, suddenly I was the enemy, and I wasn't even competing."

"Let's watch the movie," Jem said.

"Aiden's too sweet," Bingo continued, ignoring Jem. "He was falling right into a thing with her, just 'cus it was easier than saying no and hurting her feelings."

"She's not that bad," Jem said, starting the movie again.

"Guys," Bingo said. "They think with this." She grabbed her crotch.

Jem laughed. "You're crude." Bingo blew a raspberry at him.

"Yeah, you love it." On the screen a scientist put the severed head of a zombie in a pan and poured in a nutrient to sustain it.

The zombie's lips wriggled and its eyes rolled. "Mmmmmm! Zombie Helper," Jem said. "Pop it in the oven and bake."

Bingo added her own interpretation. "Now, baby, use your zombie litter."

"Good one," Jem conceded joyfully. Louis settled back into the cushions. This was great. He had an ally. Who would have guessed? He  
was having the most fun he'd had with anyone in ages, and they weren't even pack. We can be friends, he thought. It needn't be them and us. But what if they saw him in his wolf-shape? They'd be fleeing down the streets like those teenagers on the television.

"Stop, wait," he said for a zombie that chased some kids down an alley. "Let's play Scrabble." Jem and Bingo cracked up.


	15. fifteen

The trees in Gaskill State Park were festooned with crystal raindrops, and thunder still rumbled in distant skies. The air was thick with mist as the heat of the day steamed from the turf into the pewter light of dusk.

Figures wound through the trees and emerged into the clearing -- pairs, singles, groups. Louis watched them arrive from the fallen elm where he perched. Some chattered in hushed, excited tones, others came silently. Most had walked a long distance after the two-hour drive, their cars, vans, or bikes parked along lonely-country roads, in hidden clearings and forgotten lanes -- anywhere they wouldn't attract a park rangers eye.

Lucien Dafoe hobbled between two friends, complaining loudly that he was still too hurt to fight. Louis sniffed in disgust. His people healed faster than that.

"I hope someone beats the crap out of him," Lucien said, nodding toward Harry, who was laughing with a friend. "Someone not so prissy about where and what he can hunt."

Harry pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it on the ground. His body was a sculptured, oiled machine straight out of an action movie poster. Louis caught the smell of his musk on the moist, hot air -- the odor of power and excitement mixed with that of cheap strong soap. It made the light fur on the back of his neck bristle.

Over by honeysuckle-strangled bushes stood Willem, Finn, Liam, and Niall. Niall stared beyond his companions, ignoring their cackles and good-humored punches. His thin shoulders were rigid, his fists tight balls at his sides. Louis followed his gaze and saw two figures entangled in the shadows of a white oak. If logic hadn't told him otherwise he would have thought they devoured each other. The female broke away, laughing, and left the male behind, clutching after her. She stepped into the clearing and revealed herself as Astrid. It was Zayn who pursued her, his mouth still open and wet from her tongue.

Zayn and Astrid! Louis glanced back at Niall and understood the taut fury on his face. _The slut,_ Louis thought. She didn't care who she hurt. Niall now, Zayn later, if she won the bitches' match after the male Ordeal, and earned the right to claim the new leader as her mate.

"Did you see that?" Jay sat down on the log beside Louis and nodded in the direction of Astrid.

"Yeah," Louis answered. "She's old enough to be his mother." Jay's lips twitched; then she tried to look serious. "God, Mom, you don't approve, do you?"

Jay grimaced. "No. It can only lead to trouble." She paused, the smile returning. "Most of us only fantasize about it."

"Mom!"

Louis didn't have a chance to continue. Renata strode up. Her shorts were unzipped and a fluff of tan fur already covered her belly. "Astrid's gonna cause blood between those young dogs one day." She wiped the sweat off her upper lip with a hand that tapered into long, long claws. "I'll kill that alley cat if she harms my son."

"Don't worry, Rennie," Jay comforted. "Liam's the most sensible of those fools."

Louis sniffed. "That's not saying much."

Jay dug her with an elbow and Louis shut up. "So," said Renata to Louis. "Will you dance the bitches' dance? You're old enough now."

"No," Louis snapped. He wasn't about to make an exhibition of himself to win the favor of whichever muscle-bound cretin won.

Jay laughed. "He wouldn't want to hurt his old mom, would you, sweetheart? He's gonna cheer me on."

 _Fat chance,_ Louis thought. _More likely die of embarrassment._ A hum of interest buzzed around the clearing. With the first pale glimmer of moonlight over the tops of the trees, Orlando Griffin arrived and Rudy with him. They would act as referees this night, to see that the Law was carried out. The pack drew in and gathered around them to wait for Orlando's word. Louis, Jay, and Renata joined the others.

Louis noticed some strange faces. Word of an Ordeal spread, Rudy had told him. Some lone wolves always showed up. One was a big, evil-looking blond with a scar on his cheek. He wondered if he was strong enough to take Harry.

The blonds slender male companion seemed more interested in catching Jays eye than sizing up the competition. He had a cheeky smile and Jay made a warm throaty sound of interest. When she didn't turn her back on him, he came over and introduced himself as Tomas. He laughingly told Jay to "get real" when she asked if he was going to join in.

"I'm too fond of my skinny ass to risk it fighting those brutes," he said. "I don't want to lead a pack. I prefer to hunt alone. Exceptions can be made, however," he added, winking at Jay.

"The nerve," Jay said after he left to talk to Orlando about helping referee, but she wriggled with pleasure.

Orlando raised his arms and the last whispers died away. "I will recite the Law," he said. "When a leader dies by the teeth of a wolf, then the challenger leads the pack. When a leader dies by the teeth of fate then Ordeal is called, for only the swift and strong may lead. All willing adults may stand and fight, and fight they will while they stand. But when the first drop of his blood is shed, a fighter must stand aside. The final pair may fight to the death if neither will yield till he's died. So speaks the Law. Brothers, pay your respects to the Moon."

The males began to separate from the crowd, shrugging off shirts, undoing flies, but their migration was halted by another voice.

"And sisters," Astrid said. She marched up to Orlando, and Louis was outraged and delighted at the same time.

"You are mistaken," Orlando said politely.

"I am not mistaken," she insisted. "Recite the Law again, old man. All willingadults may stand and fight. Where does it say females are excluded?"

"It is tradition," Orlando growled, and the power of his youth burned in his eyes. "No female will fight. This isn't a game, Astrid. First blood can also be life's blood, especially when your opponent is twice your size."

Astrid puffed herself up indignantly, preparing to spit out her next argument, but Louis never found out what it was because Harry spoke.

"Let her."

"What? " Louis gasped, in concert with the murmur of astonishment that rose all around. Orlando's jaw dropped in surprise, and a smirk of triumph made Astrid's face look evil.

"She's right," Harry explained. "The word of the Law does not eliminate females, though tradition has for good reason. But the bold Miss Astrid is welcome to a practical demonstration why."

Louis could see the fight on Astrid's face between pride in being named bold and anger at Harry's dismissal. "She doesn't stand a chance of winning," Louis said to his mother quietly. "Why's she doing this?"

"I bet I can guess," whispered Jay. "She thinks if she can knock out some males, she'll already have a lead, over us. That it'll be a much more impressive show of strength than beating up some weak little bitches."

Harry gazed steadily at Orlando, waiting for his decision. Orlando finally spoke. "Does anyone object?" People looked at each other, but no one answered. Orlando shook his head as if with regret. "So be it," he said.

There was a disturbance on the other side of the circle from Louis. Zayn pushed through, the rest of the Five behind him. "What about us then?"

Orlando's expression grew thunderous. "Will you dispute the wordadult now?" he asked.

"Yeah," Zayn answered, sticking his thumbs in his belt. Niall's eyes flickered around the circle nervously; the other boys glared defiance.

"Having a hard-on doesn't make you an adult, boy," Harry said, and some of the grown males laughed.

Orlando waved them quiet. "The Law is specific in this matter, Zayn. Bone and flesh, flesh and bone, a man takes time to grow them. Two-five-two number the moons that it takes for a man to know them. Till then he is not the match of a man, and a man is not bound to match him."

"That's twenty-one years for you slow students," Bucky pointed out.

Finn gave him the finger. "How do I know you didn't make that up?" Zayn said to Orlando.

A collective growl went up around the circle. Niall cringed. "The voice of the Law never lies," someone shouted.

"Give it up," someone else called, and others took up the cry until Orlando raised his arms again.

Sharp, silver light etched the old man's wrinkled face into a craggy landscape as ancient as the moon's itself. "This is the Law " he said in a voice that was the Law. "You will obey or die."

The males moved silently through the crowd toward the Five, encircling them. Niall looked this way and that, his teeth bared in panic. The smirks left the faces of Liam and Finn. Then Louis could see no more, for wide backs and shoulders obscured her view.

"Come on, Zayn," Louis heard Liams voice plead. "Another time, okay?"

"Yeah," Willem joined in. "We'll get other chances."

There was silence for a minute. Finally Louis heard Zayn speak. "Fuck you." It was a curse of defeat. The tight wall of males relaxed, and Louis caught a glimpse of the Five slouching through the crowd. Harry slapped Bucky on the back and said something that made him laugh. The men turned to leave the circle as if this was a cue. Bucky passed the joke on to another. As Raul passed his wife, Magda, he grabbed her and kissed her deeply. A squeal caused Louis to turn to his right and see Rolf and Renata in a similar embrace. Jay stared at the ground, and Louis knew she longed for someone to kiss for luck.

"Come on," Louis whispered, tugging at her mother's T-shirt.

When they reached the edge of the clearing, Jay pulled her shirt over her head. Louis took off his own and slid off his shorts. In no time they were both as naked as the others who gathered in a semicircle facing the clearing.

The combatants lined up in the center of the clearing, their backs to the watching crowd, their faces to the rising moon. Astrid, standing at the end of the row, looked absurdly small beside the others, like a child mimicking her elders. There were seventeen males in line, and some of them were anonymous from behind. There was no mistaking Harry, however. He was half a head taller than the tallest of them, and only the blond newcomer matched the width of his shoulders.

Jay was playing who's who. "That's Jean next to Raul," she said to Renata. "I'd recognize that tight little butt anywhere."

Renata choked back a laugh. "Shhh!" For a moment only the creaking and chirping of insects filled the air. Then a rustling began in the woods across the clearing, beneath the rising moon. Closer and closer it came, and with it groaning. A pale figure took form in the darkness, and out stepped Persia Devereux dressed in silver robes. In her hands she carried a silver bowl, as ripe and as full as the moon. She sang a moaning soft song that throbbed like the heart of a beast. Aunt Persia was far away, but the music thrummed in Louis' ears. He swayed to it.

The old woman offered each fighter the bowl. "Drink of the Moon," she said. And as she passed down the line, backs furred, limbs twisted, ears sprouted tufts. Louis felt an answering crunch in his spine --sharp pain, sweet pain -- and a warm rush of blood in his veins that swept to his hands and feet, causing his nails to pop and grow.

Aunt Persia reached Astrid the last. The lone female was already foxy red and, though she still had fingers to steady it, she lapped from the dish with her muzzle like an Egyptian god feeding. As Astrid lifted her head, a pearl of liquid suspended on her black lip, Aunt Persia cried out a guttural word in an ancient tongue and tossed the bowl over her head. Louis howled the answering word he had learned as a cub and fell to all fours.

He expected the center to burst, but the males stepped back as if they danced to a well-known tune, and Harry shot down the line, his legs evolving. He curled out a lengthening arm and swiped once, twice. "First blood," he boomed in hollow tones from the echoing cavity of his changing mouth.

Astrid reeled and her snout, dripping red, curled back to a woman's face with the shock. "Cheat!" she screamed with human lips, then made the full change and went for his throat. He tossed her aside like a rag.

Rudy and the skinny stranger, unchanged, ran to retrieve her and tried to drag her from the field of combat. She escaped their grip, tearing Rudy's side. Another male jumped her and she ripped his throat, sending him yelping back in surprise. The other males stared as she growled a challenge, unsure of what to do, until Harry grabbed her and threw her once more to the ground, and whatever he screamed in her ear as he pinned her made her collapse. He got up and stood over her, showing his canine long teeth, until she rolled onto her back to present her belly, eyes narrow with rage. When he retreated a few paces, she flipped over and slunk to the edge of the clearing several yards down from where the other females stood.

Louis, like the rest, growled as he watched Astrid go. He knew if Astrid set one paw wrong they would all be on her. Astrid knew, too. She sank down to lie with her nose on her paws, but a ridge of fur down her spine still bristled.

A howl rose into the night.

Louis pivoted to see an ancient grizzled wolf-creature keen at the moon, a pile of silver robes at her feet. The males, all in their fur, answered -- deep and baying. Then the clearing erupted in a seething, snarling mass of fur.


	16. sixteen

Four males were eliminated before Louis could blink twice. Spat out of the fur maelstrom, they staggered their separate zigzag routes to the sidelines with bloody flanks. One dragged a damaged leg. Another burst from the rumble and fled into the woods, tail between his legs.

Rudy and Tomas, still only partly changed, dove in to drag a brindle stranger out from under scuffling claws. The stranger lay motionless under the bushes, but he stayed in his fur, so he was still alive.

The remainder wove an intricate Celtic knot. The object was to wound and not be touched. To be wounded was to be disqualified. Jaws snapped, paws danced, bodies lunged, then rolled aside.

Louis noticed the brothers, Raul and Rolf, on opposite sides of the fray. They would avoid each other if they could. Bucky had no such qualms about the two buddies he usually hung with. He feinted at one, then veered and sank his teeth into the others throat. Harry took the first one by surprise when he ducked Bucky's feint, and ripped a hole in his shoulder; then Harry turned his fangs back to the blond stranger, who retreated quickly.

Bucky brought his opponent down. They rolled, a growling mass of fur and spume, but Bucky kept his grip, forcing his teeth through the thick pelt. He must have tasted blood, because he released his hold, scrambled to all fours, and raised his muzzle in a brief triumphant howl. Louis found he was howling, too. He choked it off in surprise. Bucky spun around to protect his back. It wasn't wise to savor victory long. His defeated friend slunk toward the edge of the clearing, his belly close to the ground.

In the center, Harry and the blond stranger circled each other warily, their hackles spiked and their teeth bared. Rolf edged by them, intent on a gray who stood momentarily disengaged, his sides heaving.

That was a mistake. The blond lunged, savaged Rolf's nose, and swung back to Harry in a snarling heartbeat. Meanwhile, someone took out Raul; Louis didn't know who, but he saw Jean lay low the gray, who had only made it this far from dumb luck.

Harry and the blond still circled stiff-legged. Their lips were wrinkled into masks of hatred; their sinews trembled with the stress of restraint. Harry struck, missed, tumbled, and was back on four feet before the blondes teeth clicked on air.

Bucky herded two other strangers like sheep. Jean joined him. They made short work of the unknown pair, and Louis' heart thumped with the beauty of their fierce symmetry.  
Then they had only each other to turn on. They faced off, their jaws parted in laughter. Bucky glanced over at Harry and the blond, then back at Jean. He cocked his head and Louis knew he said, "It's just us, buddy, unless you wanna come between them?"

Jean deliberately lifted his leg and sent a short stream of urine shooting in their direction. The message was clear: "Piss on that."

Louis smiled at their banter, his mouth wide and toothy. They broke apart, turned, gathered speed; they leaped and met in midair. Bucky knocked Jean askew and landed straddling him. Now for the quick nip, Louis thought,and Jean is out.

But Jean went for Bucky's throat. Bucky jerked away. He lost his footing and the laughter left his eyes. Jean tried to wriggle out from beneath while Bucky was off guard, but Bucky found Jean's belly under his chin. He buried his teeth in Jean's stomach. Jean screamed. It was either that sound or the smell of blood, but Bucky went crazy. He ripped and ripped and ripped, while Jean shrieked.

Louis staggered with shock as Jean's entrails splattered the ground. _But they were laughing,_ he thought. He looked around for someone to make Bucky stop, but these were all strangers about him, with froth on their lips and lolling tongues, lost in the kill, urging Bucky on. Their eyes stole the silver moon and turned it red. A chill shuddered through him, despite the hot, acrid air.

Harry and the blond circled the pair on the ground with their tails held high. The blond whined and made little nips with his teeth as if he longed to join in, but Harry twitched his nose at the smell of carnage and growled. It was his right to kill, his or the blondes, not Bucky's. He dragged Bucky off by the scruff of his neck and tossed him aside.  
The blond lunged. He caught Buckys throat in his jaws and shook him wildly. Louis saw surprise in Buckys eyes. _He's going to die_ , she thought. But Harry jumped the blond from behind, and the blond let go with a yelp. Bucky fell over the body of Jean and sprawled on the blood-soaked earth. Jean shuddered into his human form. He twitched once, then lay still -- motionless, ruined meat.

The blond turned on Harry, teeth bared. He wouldn't concede. No one had thought he would. There would be another death before the night was through. They clashed in rolling, snarling fur, parted, then clashed again, the wounds opening wetly in their hides as if they were ripe fruit bursting. Louis didn't care who won. He didn't want to watch but couldn't stop. Why did they have to make their beauty foul? What kind of people were they that they'd kill their friends? What kind of people invited strangers to a ritual death? Wasn't the joy of the run and the sweet, sweet night enough?

The end came suddenly, just when he thought the fight would go on forever while he burned to cinders from shame. Harry grabbed a firm hold on the blondes thick ruff and leaped over his back, and the blondes head twisted impossibly. Louis heard a crack. The blondes eyes bulged. He went limp. Harry let go, and the blond crashed to the ground, his head lolling. A dribble of blood ran from his lips. How easy it was, like killing a chicken for Sunday dinner. Revulsion squirmed like an eel in Louis' gut and finally he could close his eyes.

Louis stood silently as the howls rose up around him, but he couldn't blot them out -- Harry's thundering bay; Orlando's cracked, keening bell; the twining tenors of Rolf and Raul. The song was triumphant, hungry, impassioned. His mother's soprano climbed to outrageous heights, and the young ones mimicked her, their reedy pipings swiftly turning hoarse. Even the Five were back, their voices lewd and raucous. The pack drew in close for the feel of fur on fur. The smell of sex was all around. Cubs would be fathered tonight. Louis tucked his tail between his legs.

Then Jay screamed and Louis' eyes shot open.

Jay twisted in circles like a puppy chasing her tail. She snapped at her back where Astrid straddled her, muzzle buried in Jay's mane. Louis found his voice and yowled a complaint, searching face after face for a sign of help, but the others backed off and formed a ring. Rage surged through him. The fur stood on end down his spine and the backs of his legs. This was the female who'd mated their leader, had been a queen, and they let her be ambushed by that cheating red bitch. Astrid rode her like a rodeo bull and they didn't raise tooth or claw to help her.

Astrid shifted her grip and Jay yelped.

In midair, Louis wondered who had control of his body. He hit Astrid hard, but the red bitch kept her grip and brought Jay down too. Louis shook with a thunder from within. Were those snarls his? All he could see was the muzzle gripping his mother's neck and Astrid's yellow eyes. Louis went for the face.

Astrid's muzzle was streaked with blood. And still she held on. Louis pushed between Astrid and Jay to pry them apart. And still Astrid held on. Louis clamped his jaws over Astrid's snout and kicked with his legs. And still Astrid held on, her yellow eyes mocking. Beneath them Jay whimpered, then choked and gasped.

 _Her windpipe_ , Louis thought. _Its closing up_.

Louis wailed. He attacked the evil soul that threatened his mother -- the evil that laughed with spite through yellow eyes. It took seven jabs to get the perfect angle: Six failed snaps glanced off protecting bone, then a canine tooth sank into a yielding surface, which held for a second, then popped like a yellow grape.

Astrid let go.

She rolled away, screaming as if to wake the dead. Louis didn't let up. He couldn't trust Astrid. What if the bitch was faking? He bulldozed hard into the whining female, and sure enough Astrid came up all teeth and claws. Astrid's fury did her no good. She wasn't as strong. She wasn't as fast. Louis had never felt this much power before. It sang through him. He could tear the hide from the wolf in the moon, but he'd settle for Astrid's instead. He could bounce her, he could roll her, he could eat her inch by inch, and the growing terror in Astrids remaining eye urged him on. He sliced a wound in Astrid's flank, herded her left and right, then circled her, making her dance a tight dizzy pirouette.

The red bitch gasped for breath, and the gooey mess on her face oozed black in the moonlight. She was weak, she had lost, Louis wanted to kill her for that alone.

Around him, one by one, the pack took up a howl. It grew louder, and louder, till it crescendoed to the stars. Louis shook his head. He wished they'd stop. Why did they have to make that racket now? He crouched to leap.

Then a body was in the way, then another, and another. He was within a circle of running female wolves. He twisted this way, that way, befuddled. They circled him as if they played a children's game --Aunt Persia, Jenny, Renata, Magda, Minerva, Odessa, Sybil, Flavia, more and more and more. He wanted to leap their heads and get to Astrid, but now he couldn't remember which way to go.

Then they were still.

Beyond them Louis could see the males, standing as silently. All eyes were on him. _What do they want from me?_  he thought, and dread slowly replaced the rage. He longed to flee, but was trapped in the thick, translucent night like a fly in amber.

 _I have done something terrible_ , he decided. _I have ruined the Ordeal_. His heart constricted with fear. _How did they punish that?_ But he raised his head and defied them with his eyes. _I defended my own when you would not,_  he thought. Yet the blood on his tongue tasted bitter. He was as bad as them. It was in him too -- the thirst for blood, the need to kill. And where was Jay, anyway? Dead on the sodden turf, no doubt. _Perhaps I deserve whatever they mete out as justice._ He stamped his front paws. _Do your worst,_  he thought.

But bravado didn't stop him from cringing when Aunt Persia stepped into the circle. The next thing that happened was baffling. Aunt Persia crouched on the ground, her ears laid flat. She rolled on her back and presented her belly. _What is she doing?_ Louis thought in shock. Then one by one the other females followed Persia's example, presenting their bellies, exposing their throats, paying tribute.

 _Oh, no. Oh, no_. Louis looked around in frantic confusion. Was this some nightmare?  _Its not me,_ she wanted to scream. _I am no queen._

What had happened to ceremony? He'd thought the bitches' dance would start with some formal rite, not a sneak attack. He hadn't planned to be a part of it. But a female or omega past their sixteenth birthday counted as grown. He crouched in horror and buried his nose between his paws.

This couldn't be right. No others had fought. What about the other females? Quickly he cataloged them -- too old, too young, already mated, too fragile. He had never stopped to think before, he had been so determined to avoid the contest, but when no female strangers had arrived there had been only three possible contenders.

A soft tongue lapped at his nose, and with it drifted the sweet familiar breath that made him think of warm food and cozy beds. A muzzle nudged his. He opened his eyes. Jay. Safe. Dismay forgotten for a moment, he sprang to his feet and pranced a few excited steps.

But Jay stepped aside, the circle parted, and toward Louis, through the expectant pack, paced Harry, his sleek muscles rippling, his dark fur tipped by stars.  
Louis froze. His happiness at his mother's safety drained away. He had accidentally named himself Harry's mate.

Harry stood before his, his jaws parted in a toothy grin. He stared up into Harry's forest green eyes while he waited for him to admit his dominance. A soft growl rose in Louis' throat. _Never_ , he thought. _You will not make me offer you my belly. I do not c_ _hoose you knowingly._

He grinned even wider at her defiance and licked his lips. He would relish the challenge, would he? Well, to crown a queen you must catch him first.

Louis sprang past him down the aisle he'd already opened, along the tunnel of fur and out to the woods. He ran like the Wolf of the North made of stars in heaven, who with one long stride can leap over the top of Earth. The grasses he crushed made the night air pungent with freedom. But behind him he heard the thunder of Harry's pursuit.


	17. seventeen

Louis climbed naked through his bedroom window and tumbled onto his bed. He had changed into his human form in the backyard bushes before he scaled the drainpipe to the porch roof. Only a rosy glow tinged the western sky. He hoped the neighbors weren't early risers.

It seemed an eternity since he'd run from the Ordeal. He must have flown like the wind to lose Harry, but he hadn't stopped to catch his breath until the sounds of his pursuit were long silent. He'd hidden in a shallow cave near a rocky crest until he was sure Harry hadn't tracked him; then he'd taken off for home. He'd never run that far before. The journey had taken all night.

His palms and soles were bloody, and his body ached. Gingerly he limped to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He ran the water as hot as he could stand and drenched his body, his face, and his hair, as if trying to wash the last twelve hours away. _How could I do that to Astrid?_   he asked himself over and over.

Jay and Rudy hadn't come home yet, but they wouldn't be far behind him, he was sure. After the celebration, they would have stayed long enough to bury the dead in an isolated spot, then headed back. He cranked up the air conditioner in his other window and locked his door. How could they let him behave that way? How could they actually approve?

He pulled the sheet over his head, but he couldn't sleep. Was he truly obliged to become Harry's mate, or did winning the fight only give him first dibs, so to speak? Could he delegate the role? Maybe he could appoint Astrid. He giggled half hysterically.

Bloody Moon, why did Harry want him? Now he was pack leader, even some of the mated bitches would slink behind the bushes with him. He could go to one of the other communities and easily bring back a wife.

Louis' eyes shot open with excitement. That was what he'd suggest. Surely the pack wouldn't condone his mating Louis against his will, would they? He relaxed and his eyes closed again. Sleep wound a cotton shroud around him.

When Louis woke it was dark outside. The house was silent. He had slept the day away. He vaguely remembered half waking much earlier when someone rattled his doorknob. That must have been Jay's voice he'd heard call his  name. _I'll get up in a minute,_ she told herself, then rolled over and tumbled back into unconsciousness.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was morning, and there was an insistent rapping on his bedroom door.

"What?" he called out angrily."

"Are you getting up?" Jay asked. 

"No."

"We've got to talk." 

"No, we don't."

"Look, it's okay," Jay said. "You're embarrassed about running away. Everyone understands. You were overwhelmed by what happened. You're young. You're used to boys. A man's a different matter entirely. But you're omega enough to handle him, I know you are, baby. You're my boy."

 _Boy, does she have hold of the wrong end of the rabbit,_ Louis thought. _Don't bother telling me how Astrid is, and whether I've crippled her for life. Don't tell me how Bucky is coping with killing a buddy._

"I didn't enter any competition on purpose, and I don't want Harry, so go to hell, Mom," he finally answered.

"Louis!" Jay sounded more hurt than angry.

The phone rang. "Okay, okay," Jay said. "I'll leave you alone to get used to the idea." She left to answer the insistent jangling.

Louis threw a glass across the room. It shattered on the window frame. Even his mother would gladly hand him over to a mate he didn't want.

All day Louis came out of his room only when he was sure Jay was elsewhere. He knew it drove his mother crazy. _Serves her right_ , he thought. _If I hadn't had to save her ass, I wouldn't be in this fix._

The phone rang constantly, it seemed. _Nosy bastards,_ Louis thought. _Don't they have their own sex lives to keep them busy?_   He turned his television on loudly to drown out the ringing, but there were only stupid game shows on and a program in which fat women complained that their boyfriends couldn't accept them as they were. He turned the TV off in disgust.

Louis stared at his unfinished mural of running wolf-kind, and the fine hair on the back of his neck bristled.

He wondered if he had enough paint to obliterate it, but a pang of loss cut through him at the thought. _Nah,_  he told himself. _That was the good times. The harmony. That's the stuff I want to remember_. An ache awoke for the blissful oblivion that seeped through him when he painted, and he went so far as to lift a brush from the jar on his desk, but the grip hurt his still-bruised fingers. _I'd have to go get water,_  he realized. He tossed the brush down.

A squeak on the landing warned him Jay was close again. "That boy's on the phone," Jay announced outside his door. _She means Aiden,_ Louis guessed. "Tell him I'm sick." Jay went away without arguing. _She'd just as soon put him off_ , Louis thought. _She only told me_ _because she hoped the phone call would get me out of my room._

After Jay left for work, Louis tried to phone Orlando Griffin and find out what his options were under pack Law. There was no answer. He slammed the receiver down. Then Rudy came home, and he didn't want to call again with him around. Louis was relieved when he opted for an early night and left him alone with HBO. He fell asleep on the couch on purpose so he could snarl at Jay when his mother woke him up to send him to bed.

Rudy rose early on Saturday to go bicycling before the temperature soared into the nineties, and Jay slept in late as usual, so Louis found himself alone when he wandered downstairs. He tried phoning Orlando, but again there was no answer.

"Where on earth has that old wolf got to?" Louis muttered to himself. He thought old people stayed put and had routines.

The phone rang, and he answered before the bell had a chance to wake Jay; then he cursed himself silently. What if it was Harry?

It wasn't. "Hi, Louis. Feeling better?" Aiden had called again. For a moment he felt out of sync with the world. His voice was so normal, so innocent.

"Not really," he lied. "I'm still kind of weak."

"Flu?"

"Yeah."

"That's a bitch," he said. "It's even worse getting sick in the summer."

"Yeah. Still grounded?" Louis asked.

"Yeah. But relief is in sight. My parents are going out tomorrow night. They're seeing old friends. People who keep them out late. Get it? Huh, huh? Wanna come over?"

"What about your sister?" Louis asked. His sister seemed the type to squeal in a second.

"Going to a sleepover."

"That's convenient."

"You don't say. So how about it?" He hesitated.

The invitation was tempting in the extreme; any other time he wouldn't think twice, but with what he had done to Astrid did he dare let himself be alone with Aiden no matter how much he longed for him? He'd thought he was in control of himself; now he was no longer sure.

"Please, please, Lou. I miss you." Aiden's voice was hushed and seductive, as if his head lay on a pillow next to his. Desire stirred in Louis. "I miss your toes," he continued, "I miss your feet, I miss your calves, I miss your knees, I miss your thighs, I miss your . . . intellect."

Louis burst into laughter. How could that funny, sweet boy bring out the violence in him? He wasn't like Astrid. "Look, I'll call you tomorrow and let you know how I'm feeling," he said.

"Early, or I couldn't stand it."

"Early," he promised.

"Cool." Louis was still smiling when he walked into the living room, but what he saw there wiped the smile off his face. "How did you get in?"

Harry lounged in an armchair. "Rudy." Even at rest he looked powerful, and Louis kept his distance. He noticed the white of a bandage under the hem of Harry's shirt, and the shiny pink and white of new scars on his arms. Louis thought of the damage he could inflict and shivered.

Harry grinned lazily. "Don't be pissed off at him. I pulled rank."

 _Yeah_ , Louis thought. _And I bet you loved doing it._ "What do you want?" he asked.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "I thought you knew."

"Well, you can't have it," Louis snapped. "So go." Inside he was trembling.

He marched out of the room and to the kitchen, where he banged the toaster oven open, then grabbed a bagel and began to saw at it with a serrated knife.

Harry came up behind Louis and placed his hands over his, stilling his motions. The heat of him scorched Louis from the backs of his knees to the nape of his neck. "You're gonna cut yourself that way," he murmured, his breath in Louis' hair.

"Who cares?" He thought briefly of slicing his hand but dismissed the idea. He was much bigger than him and didn't mind hitting females or omegas.

He took the bagel and knife from Louis, and he ducked under his arm and left the heat of him behind. He cut the bread carefully. "Toasted?" He was so damn calm, so irritating.

"No."

He placed the bagel in the open toaster oven and pressed the lever. "Sure."

Louis folded his arms across his chest and glared at him. "So. Are you going?"

"We can take it slow," he said. "You can learn to be with me. Find out what I'm all about. You never know, you might like what you find."

"Don't hold your breath," Louis said.

Harry stepped toward him casually, amusement flickering around his lips. Louis tensed, his eyes checking for a way to run.

"Or ..." His hand lashed out, grabbed Louis, and whipped him into his arms, where he held him tight. "We can take it fast and rough." His mouth came down on Louis' and his hot tongue parted his lips. He pulled back, but Harry caught his hair in his fist and pressed him close. Louis pushed on his chest and struggled in his arms, but he wouldn't let go. _Damn him_ , he thought, tears forming. _I don't want fierce, I want gentle_.

When he tried to knee Harry's groin, he pulled away of his own accord, laughter in his eyes.

"You think you're such a stud, don't you?" Louis said.

"Don't you?" he asked. Louis stormed out of the kitchen to the dining room. Harry followed him. "I see I'm required to court you in every room of the house."

"Not likely," Louis replied.

"I'm looking forward to the bedrooms," he said.

"Go to hell!"

His grin faded. "I will court you," he said. "And I won't give up. I will wait for you like I waited for you outside that cave, and I'll follow you like I followed you home that night, keeping you safe. I will wait for you because you are meant to be mine" -- his voice grew husky with desire -- "and because you'll be worth the wait. Goodbye, Princess Wolf. Let me know what deeds must be done to win you."

When he'd left Louis could still smell him in the room as if he'd claimed his whole life. "I'll choose my own mate," he swore, and walked to the phone.


	18. eighteen

"What if I were a magical creature?" Louis asked Aiden. He could hear him breathing on the other end of the line. He wished his heartbeat were as slow and steady.

"What kind of magical creature?" he asked.

"What if I could change into something else?"

Aiden laughed. "Like a selkie in a Scottish fairytale?"

"Or . . . like a wolf," Louis said.

"You'd be a very beautiful wolf," he said. 

Louis smiled. "I am." 

"And, Mademoiselle Wolf, what do you want from me?" he asked. 

"I want you to think about what I've just said," Louis told him. "I'm coming to you tonight, and I'll make it true."

It was after nine, and the fat, lazy night hummed with the gossip of insects and wallowed in too much perfume. The heat of the day had yet to fade, and Louis plucked at the damp material of his dress as he crossed the main road and entered the tree-lined streets of Aiden's neighborhood.

Fear fluttered in his chest. He was defying pack Law. _But no one had to know,_  he thought. _Just Aiden and me. What harm can there be in that?_

He knew Aiden thought he was playing on the phone that morning. He knew he would have to show him to make him believe. But if he had started Aiden thinking about him changing form, that might help him accept it more easily when he finally did. He imagined the look of wonder on his face as he changed before his eyes. He might even be a little frightened at first, but he loved Louis, didn't he? He could see it in his eyes. He would know that Louis would never mean him harm. Aiden loved him and he loved Aiden. He shivered with excitement. He had never put those feelings into words before. _I want to share my life with someone I care about,_  he thought. _What gives them the right to tell me who to love?_

But what if the pack found out? Would he and Aiden have to run away together? Surely he'd want to when he found out Louis'd been claimed by another. Aiden chafed under his father's rules. He wouldn't want to stay. They could go somewhere far away. They wouldn't starve. He could hunt for them both.

Louis laughed abruptly. He sounded like one of those romance novels Jay consumed like popcorn. Aiden needed his parents to pay for college. He didn't want to ruin Aiden's life. But he did want someone who'd appreciate the sheer beauty of what he was. He would understand why Louis didn't want to make light of life, or use his strength to lord it over others. He'd understand that being was enough.

Maybe there was even a way to change him. He'd never known it done, but there were legends --survive the bite of a werewolf and a human became one; drink water from the paw-print of a werewolf; smear on a magic salve -- legends were often based on a nugget of truth. Oh, he would love that. Louis knew he would. He wanted so much to be special. But Aiden wouldn't lord it over him, or soil his new ability with blood and power. He would be Louis' true mate.

He walked up the flower-fringed path to Aiden's house. He paused to take a deep breath and speak a prayer to the Moon. The Moon looked after lovers. A bead of sweat trickled down the low neckline of the soft cotton sheath he wore. His rat-a-tat knock echoed the beat of hid racing heart.

"It's open," Aiden called from inside. "Count to ten, then come in." There were excitement and secrets in his voice. He echoed Louis' mood as if he were his soul's twin. Louis' eagerness for him eclipsed his fears.

He was curious and impatient, but he indulged him. Slowly he counted, then tried the knob, and the front door opened easily. He stepped from the thick night heat into a shadowed hallway filled with cool, discrete air.

Louis didn't bother to search the first floor. He wouldn't be there. He understood Aiden's game. Instead, he quietly ascended the stairs. As he came closer to the landing the apple-sweet warmth of him filled Louis' nostrils. He knew exactly where Aiden was.

Louis approached Aiden's room languorously, enjoying the soft slide of cotton across his thighs. He was torturing himself as well as Aiden, drawing out anticipation with excruciating delight. _To hell with telling him right away,_  he thought. _Maybe I'll love him first._

Hot steamy air that mimicked the night lingered outside an open door. He drifted inside and saw a bathroom, the tub still full. He didn't have to bathe for Louis. He would have devoured his sweat, licked it from him, and rubbed himself against his fragrant body until he became his essence. _No matter_ , Louis thought. _I will make him sweat more_.

A delicious shudder went through him. He dropped to his knees by the tub, then lowered his head and lapped up a sip. The water tasted of him. _I'm coming to get you,_  he thought delightedly.

Louis hummed the catchy refrain of a popular tune with wicked words as he neared Aiden's room. At his bedroom door he stopped. "Am I still cold?" he said aloud, and waited a moment. He reached for the knob. He thrust open the door. "Or am I hot?"

He let the door slide from his hand to thud gently against the wall and stood framed in the doorway. His triumph transmuted to wonder as he saw the candles. A motley assortment of every shape, size, and color covered every spare surface. There had to be at least a hundred. They gleamed like stars and turned Aiden's room into a glittering grotto.

"Where did you get them all?" he asked breathlessly.

"Oh, I scrounged," Aiden said. He was in his bed and, apparently, naked under the sheets.

"I expect you need them to keep you warm," he said. Aiden blushed and looked away from his amused scrutiny, obviously wondering if he'd miscalculated. Louis felt a familiar tightening of his spine. _The change?_  he thought. _Now?_ His knees popped. Was the Goddess telling him not to waste time making love?

"It's a lovely way to be met," he said to Aiden, and his voice wavered. Aiden smiled despite his red face. He probably mistook the tremor in Louis' words for sentiment. A ripple rode down the flesh of his back. "This is the perfect setting for the magic I was planning to show you tonight." But he had expected more time to prepare him.

His smile grew wider.

"You wanted magic, didn't you?" Louis asked, not expecting a reply. He was compelled, as if a full moon hung in the sky. "You wanted something special to happen, but you never thought it would. Well, I can show you what you've never seen before. Something beautiful, and wild, and beyond imagining."

Aiden's eyes half closed and his lips parted expectantly.

Louis laughed. "No, silly. I want to show you what I can turn into." Excitement took over now that there was no turning back. He kicked off his shoes, then took hold of his hem and lifted it, wriggling a little to bring the dress over his Head. He tossed his dress aside and stood in only his underwear.

Aiden let out a short breath more sigh than moan.

He slid his underwear to his knees and let them slither down his calves. He stepped out of them and the blush of the change crept like an itching rash across his chest. Sweat trickled down his sides despite the chill air.

Aiden held his arms out to Louis. His breath grew harsh; his eyes burned with fever. He wanted to give in to Aiden's desire; that would be so much simpler than explanations; but Louis' body had other plans. "Not yet," he said, and twitched. "When I change back. First I will show you my secret."

He frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but Louis hushed him. "Remember your poem, 'Wolf Change'?" he asked. "This is your poem." His heart picked up speed. He flexed his hands as they filled with his hardening pads; stood on tiptoes as his soles roughened. But when he felt the first prickling of hair on his back he had a rush of doubt. What if Aiden didn't love him in his wolf-skin? Was ancestral hate ingrained too deep in them all? He glanced outside to take strength from the high-flying three-quarter moon. No, he would see the beauty.

A jolt of painful ecstasy doubled him over, and his arms wrapped around his belly. Aiden sat upright in bed. "Are you okay?"

Louis grinned up at him through his tumbling hair. A sharp tooth pricked his lip. "It's all right," he said. "Wait and see." Louis' voice held a throaty rasp.

A shivering tickle of hair grew over his shoulders and crept down his arms. His elbows popped. Aiden looked puzzled. The change came fast then. His arms lengthened, his legs shortened, his joints reformed. He uttered a guttural cry of pleasure as his spine extended into tail, the bone quickly wrapping itself with flesh, then fur. He felt the creaking, crunching as his jaw extended, and his eyes now saw the rainbows around each candle flame. He looked to see Aiden's amazement and pleasure.

Aiden's face was white in the flickering candlelight, his eyes large. He drew his limbs close to his body. Awkwardly he shifted away from her, crushing his back against the headboard. His mouth opened into a gash and from it came a hideous whining sound. Naked and wormlike, he cowered on the bed like a nightmare view of an asylum inmate. He stank of fear.

Louis' thudding heart grew cold in his expanding chest. He tried to reverse the change but his body wouldn't listen. "No," he called to him. "I mean you no harm." But the hand he held out in love grew claws.

He screamed.

"Wait," Louis said. "I know. I know. I look odd now but the end is gorgeous." But the words came out in a hollow growl from a mouth not meant to speak. Spittle flecked his muzzle with the effort.

As he completed the change, Aiden began to cry, silent tears coursing down his stricken face.

The bile of self-loathing rose in Louis'. How could he be such a fool? Mixed with his disgust at himself was contempt for Aiden's cringing, then guilt because he had caused it. His heart broke for Aiden because he feared, because he couldn't see the wonder, then raged at him because he made him feel unclean.

 _I came here for you to comfort me_ , he howled. _I thought you'd understand._ But he could tell from Aiden's face that all he saw was a savage beast. _I am not like them_ , he cried.

He groped for the table beside the bed, his eyes on Louis' face. _Look, I am lovely_ , he begged him. Louis whimpered and wagged his tail like a dog. Aiden flung a mug at his head. _No!_ he howled as it smashed on the wall behind him. Aiden hated him. He loathed him. He brought him pain. He didn't belong here. He didn't belong anywhere. He had to get away.

The quickest way out was the window. He didn't care what lay below. The last thing he remembered was a shattering, and he flew through the air amid glittering shards of glass.


	19. nineteen

Louis woke with the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. He frowned and groaned, then opened his eyes. He closed them quickly when bright daylight sent a lightning stab of pain through his skull. His head throbbed in the aftermath.

He was in his room, that was certain. He could tell he was naked and uncovered on his bed, the sheet twisted around his ankles, but he couldn't remember how he'd gotten there.

The air was thick with a stench too jumbled to separate and identify. It hurt to try. Why did his whole body ache? What did he do last night?

 _Aiden!_ He remembered the way he'd cringed from him. "Sweet Moon," he moaned. But what next? He had leaped from his window, he knew -- it was a stupid, crazy thing to do -- but the Moon looks after her own and he'd hit the ground running. And that was all he remembered -- running, running, running.

Or was it? He thought he saw Zayn's face in there somewhere. Or was that a dream he'd had?

The room was filthy hot. He would love to turn on the air conditioner, but every nerve end cried out to him, "Don't move!" Ignoring the caution, he shifted slightly, and his stomach heaved. _Okay, okay, I'll just lie here,_  he told himself. The heat's not that bad. Maybe if he was lucky he'd fall asleep again and wouldn't have to think or feel.

He wasn't lucky. He lay bitterly awake on the cusp of nausea as the events in Aiden's room replayed over and over within his head.

I'm so stupid, he thought. _So stupid. Stupid. Stupid._

He tried to move past that moment and on to events beyond, but the night opened up like a black pit of nothing with no landmarks and looped him back to the scene in Aiden's room. Time had passed, that was all he knew, and a chunk of his life had been torn away while he'd been mobile and mindless and in despair. It was as if he hadn't existed for that time. Was that nothingness like the nothingness of death? He tried to imagine a forever of non-being with no conscious moments ever again. He shuddered despite the heat.

He had heard of this happening -- a change coming on so violently that it wiped away the human side and the animal reigned supreme. That was in stories, though, and triggered by great passions like jealousy or rage. He'd never known it to happen to a real person. And -- the nausea rose again unbidden by movement -- usually something terrible happened during the blackout.

 _Stop being an asshole,_ he told himself. _Obviously the stories were based on reality, but the terrible parts were there because they were stories._

He was sticky and gritty and dehydrated. _I need a shower,_  he thought. He imagined floating in a bathtub full of water and ice. The image was so comforting he held on to it and almost lulled himself back to sleep, but it also woke a tortured thirst.

He opened his eyes again, slowly this time and only halfway, and peered through the slits. His head still hurt, but if he moved carefully maybe he could stand the pain. Right now water from the bathroom tap promised to be sweeter than ambrosia. He smiled slightly at the thought, and something cracked and crumbled around her mouth. He raised his hand to his lips and found a rough crust there. He inspected his fingers and saw rust-colored flakes. A hollow thud increased its tempo within him.

 _I must have bitten my lip in the jump_ , he thought. _That's it. Or maybe I caught a rabbit. Yes_. And underneath, in the back of his mind, another voice cried, _Let it not be human._

He sat up, ignoring the screaming pain that went with the action, and the cold sweat that ran down his back. He looked down and found he was streaked with the remnants of blood. The sheets were blotched with it, dry and brown amid the evidence of vomit. He could smell the blood clearly now amid the sweat, puke, and tears. It was unmistakable. It was human.

He heaved over the side of the bed and weakly grabbed a handful of sheet to wipe his mouth. "Oh, sweet Moon. What have I done?" he moaned. Then a colder fear grabbed him .  _Not Aiden?_

He scrambled off the bed, becoming entangled with the sheet, and barely missed treading in the pool of his vomit. At the door he realized --  _I can't go to the phone like this. What if Jay sees me?_

He grabbed his robe from the back of the door and fled to the bathroom, reaching the toilet bowl in time to throw up again.

His shower wasn't the peaceful bath of his fantasy. He scrubbed his skin raw as he tried to erase even the ghost of a stain, and washed his hair till the roots hurt with the wringing. All the while tears streamed down his cheeks. _I couldn't have_ , he told himself. _I wouldn't have hurt him, no matter how much he hurt me_. But he wasn't sure.

He approached the phone in the upstairs hallway swathed in towels. "Is that you, hon?" Jay called from her room.

"Yeah, Mom," Louis answered reluctantly. The words came out as a croak.

"Are you sick?" Jay asked.

 _In a big way,_ Louis thought. "Yeah, Mom."

"Then go back to bed," Jay answered, and ended the order with an inappropriate giggle. _Great Moon, she's got someone in there with her_. For once this didn't annoy Louis. At least that would keep Jay out of the way.

Louis picked up the phone, then panicked. What do I say if his father answers? "Hi, this is Louis, is Aiden dead?" He swallowed a hysterical laugh and punched out his number. The receiver trembled in his hand, and the ringing shrieked through the soft tissues of his brain. It went on and on and on. _They're at the police station_ , he thought. _Or the hospital_. _His father's identifying the body right now._

Then someone answered. "Hello?" It was Aiden.

Louis slammed down the phone. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," he whispered to the Moon. But if it wasn't Aidens blood, whose was it? He found a fresh pair of shorts and a clean T-shirt and got dressed, listening to a news station on the radio, but all he heard were endless baseball scores. After he'd mopped the floor with his towel, he bundled it up with his sheets and dragged the lot downstairs and threw everything in the washer. He switched on the local cable TV news and sat through reports of another shooting downtown, sexual harassment in the federal government, and some stupid boat show at the conference center.

Then, as he was trying to force some cereal down, a siren wailed through the streets close by then another, and another. He pushed his bowl away and reached the door in time to see an ambulance tear by, followed by a motorcycle cop. He took off after them.

The midday heat seared his lungs as he ran, and the world was a white blast of sun. He could hear a dying siren up ahead and crackling radios. He turned right at Dobb's grocery to find Tooleys bar, on the corner of the next block, surrounded by a thousand flashing lights. It looked as if every cop from the surrounding three townships was there. Two fire engines rumbled like dragons waiting for lunch, and there was a rescue squad truck idling alongside the ambulance. A crowd was gathering.

He stumbled along the cracked, mossy sidewalk, gasping for air. His hand trailed along the brick of the barbershop as if its roughness could summon reality as well as balance. When he reached the cross street, one of the fire engines let out a squeal and he flinched. It belched once, then pulled away. He saw that the remaining activity seemed to be centered around the back door of the bar, which opened onto a small yard containing a Dumpster.

As he reached the upholsterer's directly opposite the yard, a policewoman strung a plastic yellow streamer across the entrance. _Sweet Moon,_ Louis thought. _Is this my doing?_  He turned away and pressed his forehead to the filthy shop window.

Behind him came a clatter of boot heels and a jingling of chains. He whirled to face the noise and saw the Five. The twins and Liam almost danced, they were so full of electric excitement.

"Hell, Louis. You look like shit," said Finn. Louis flipped him off.

"Ooooh, she's sooo tough," Liam responded.

Willem shoved him. "Leave her alone."

"Better not let Haz know you're still sweet on her," Liam told him.

"Yeah. He'll kick your ass," Finn said. Willem spat at his twin. Finn dodged the wad. Zayn hadn't spoken a word. He just stared at Louis with a look of smug amusement on his face.

Niall stood beside him fidgeting. "What's happened here?" Louis asked gruffly.

Niall finally spoke. "They found a body behind the Dumpster." His voice was squeaky. "Some guy." Louis felt a cold lump in his gut.

"We didn't get to see it," Willem told him. "But there's a lot of blood."

"A goddamn river of it down to the drain," Liam added with relish. "I heard some cop muttering about wild animals." He cackled with delight.

Across the street an ambulance took off quietly. One of the police cars followed. Lucien Dafoe came around the corner. That didn't surprise Louis; Lucien was Tooley's best customer. He leaned against the door-jamb of the bar entrance and grinned at all the activity. He should have the sense to look shocked even if he didn't care.

Louis realized then that Zayn had asked him a question. "What?"

Zayn folded his arms and cocked his head. "I said, did you see anything, Lou?"

"Huh?"

"Down here. Last night. I saw you in your wolf-skin under the bridge. You were heading this way."

The sun scorched his head, setting his skull on fire. His tongue felt thick, and it was difficult to talk. "Was I?" He tried to sound nonchalant.

Zayn chuckled, but his eyes looked cold and eager. "Got something to tell us, babe? Something we should know about? Huh?"

"You're full of shit, Zayn." Louis had to get away before the trembling inside broke loose. He couldn't let them see him panic. "There's nothing more to see here. I'm sure Jay will fill me in on the details after her next shift." He turned to go.

"Don't think you're any better than us, Lou," Zayn called after him. "We saw what you did to Astrid."

Louis walked back the way he had come, in the knife-sharp, white summer heat, through a neighborhood as alien as the landscape of her dreams. It wasn't me. It couldn't be me, he thought. But the blood he had scrubbed from under his nails proclaimed him a liar.


	20. twenty

When Louis woke on Sunday, the air in his room was cool and sweet, and the sunlight that stole between the curtains was pale and innocent. He could hear the radio playing softly downstairs. _It was all a dream_ , he thought, and took a long, deep breath. Aiden still loved him. There had been no blood on his face.

The moment he entered the kitchen Louis knew he'd been lying to himself again. There were dark circles under Jay's eyes and her hair was haphazardly gathered back in a single comb. She was still in her nightgown. "Feeling better, baby?" Jay asked vaguely, and stared into the distance as she sipped her coffee.

"What's wrong?" Louis asked, dreading the answer.

"They found a body in back of Tooleys Saturday morning." No one had told Jay that he'd been at the scene, Louis realized.

"So?" he said, his heart thumping.

Jay set her mug down. "The cook who found the body described it to me," she answered. "Unless somethings escaped from the zoo, the killer was one of us."

Louis tried to look shocked. "Who would do that?"

"That's what we need to find out, because if this keeps on happening it'll be West Virginia all over again."

"But this is the city," Louis said. "They'll think it's a psycho."

"Maybe the police and the newspapers will put it down to a psycho," Jay answered. "But there's always someone who can put two and two together and come up with werewolf. And what if he fancies himself a hero?"

"Maybe it won't happen again." _I won't let it happen,_ Louis thought.

Jay shook her head. "I'd like to think that, but it doesn't work that way."

Louis fought down panic. "What do you mean?"

"Once someone goes over the edge and gets a taste, he can't seem to stop. It happened in New Orleans. That's why the pack moved to West Virginia years ago. And then it happened there, too. Your father said we could live in peace as long as we kept to ourselves. He was wrong. Now I wonder if we ever can have peace. The stories the humans tell say we're cursed. Maybe they're right."

Louis' mouth was dry. He could hardly speak. "Even if the killer is seen, even if the killer is tracked and caught, they won't know there are others, will they?"

"I don't know, Louis. I don't know where this will lead. We're not invulnerable. You should know that after what you've seen."

What if he'd brought death to his people, all because he'd thought a human could love him?

The doorbell rang. "Bloody Moon," Jay said, swiping at her hair. "That's Harry."

Louis' voice caught in his throat. "What's he doing here?"

"Don't worry," Jay snapped. "Not to court you, Mister Priss. He wants to know what I found out last night."

 _Then why didn't he ask you on the phone?_ Louis thought. How could he face Harry, who always seemed to see right through him?

"Go let him in while I tidy up," Jay ordered.

When Louis opened the door he was relieved to see Rudy pulling into the driveway. Harry turned to greet him before he was obliged to speak. Rudy slapped Harry on the back and ushered him in.

He was going to disappear upstairs but Harry called him back. "You should be in on this, too." What did he mean by that? Did he know something?

Jay came downstairs wearing a short sundress. Even disaster didn't deter her where Harry was concerned. _Weren't you turning him over to me, Mom?_ Louis thought.

They settled in the living room, where Jay described in detail the condition of the corpse. Louis didn't want to hear, but he couldn't do anything to shut the words out. _I wouldnt do that_ , he thought. _I couldn't._ But again he remembered the blood on his sheets.

"The people at the bar think the killer was a rabid dog or a big cat someone was keeping as a pet that got loose," Jay said.

Louis spoke up although he'd not meant to. "Maybe that's what the cops think." He remembered that Liam had mentioned a policeman mumbling about wild animals.

"Their forensic specialists are going to be pretty confused when they try to identify any hair, saliva, or blood they might find," said Rudy. "And the size of any bite wound won't make sense."

"Is that good or bad?" Louis wondered out loud.

"That might depend on whether it's an isolated incident," Harry answered. "The night Astrid led a run by the river," he said, pinning Louis with his piercing eyes. "Did they bring someone down?"

"No." The intensity of his gaze frightened him, and the word came out quick and defensive.

"No one I've talked to so far has heard of any other mysterious bodies appearing, either," Harry said. "So if it doesn't happen again, maybe we'll be all right. Maybe after a while, when they can't identify the killer, the police will write the incident off as a weird one-timer they can spook the rookies on night shift with. Meanwhile, I'm going to order that no one go out in their fur if possible. The police are going to be searching for a large animal."

Jay looked as if she wanted to protest but didn't dare. "What if it does happen again?" Rudy asked.

Harry scowled. "Our job is to not let it."

"We need to know who to stop, first," Rudy said. "Got any ideas?"

"A few," Harry answered.

"Astrid?" Jay suggested.

Harry shrugged. "Right now she's got an all-night alibi, not that I place much faith in Zayn's word."

Jay rolled her eyes. "Still cradle robbing, huh?"

"What about Zayn's father?" Rudy asked. "Lucien hangs out at Tooley's drinking his meals. He's always getting into fights with that biker Skull and his buddies."

Louis remembered Lucien watching the police, grinning. "No," Harry said. "A fight would be loud. Someone would have heard it. This had to be quick. He wasn't expecting death and never got the chance to scream."

Louis tried to picture the kill, afraid that he would suddenly see himself there, but desperate for the truth. Could he bring down a total stranger in that way, without anger, without cause?

"I could understand if this were some harsh winter hundreds of years ago, and we were starving," Harry said, his eyes glittering with anger. "But this wasn't a kill for food, it was for pleasure -- a pleasure that could condemn us all. I'll be watching; others will watch for me; and when I'm sure who's done this I'll make him pay."

His words struck Louis with the strength of a blow, and for a moment he couldn't catch his breath.

Harry rose to his feet and paced the room. Louis watched him with cold dread. His arms were powerful; they could snap a neck with one smack. His legs were long, and even through his jeans he could sense the muscle and sinew that would allow him to run down the swiftest prey. When he put on his pelt he was a massive, dark, merciless animal.

"I understand the urge to kill as much as any of us," he said fiercely, and Louis believed him. "But it must be controlled. There's no wilderness to hide in anymore. We can't run in packs in the mountains where travelers go unmissed for months, there are no black forests that stretch on for days, and it's been many centuries since we ruled small kingdoms in the dark center of Europe as if we were gods. _Homo sapiens_ is everywhere, they outnumber us, and _Homo lupus_ must live beside them. As much as we might crave to, we cannot kill them. To do so endangers us." He paused. "Sometimes I think we have outlived our time."

He yearns for the old days, Louis realized with chill fascination. He wondered if part of Harry's anger at the killer was because he could not allow himself the same luxury. He recognized deep within himself the same red spark of desire for a time when instinct wasn't bound and the young Moon found it easy to forgive. He shuddered and looked away.

"I'm sorry this has frightened you," Harry said, and Louis realized he was standing at his chair, studying him. His eyes were gentler than they had been moments ago.

"What makes you think I'm frightened?" he said.

"Louis, I can smell it on you." He reached down and lightly stroked Louis' cheek with fingers that could easily crush his throat. He didn't dare pull back. "I'm sorry you lost your home in West Virginia. I'll find you another, and soon, I promise. I'll make you safe."

  
Louis almost laughed.


	21. twenty-one

Louis sprawled on the couch and allowed the tears to dry on his face. All he'd done for the last three days was haunt the living room, listening to the most miserable music he could find and tying himself up in knots. At night he locked himself in his room and comforted himself with chocolate. His dreams were of the dark and of blood.

The CD ended, leaving him in harsh silence, allowing the same old thought to ring in his head. _How can he not love me?_ He clutched the pentagram he still wore around his neck. No one had ever turned him away. Even Harry wanted him. And all Louis wanted was some pale, floppy-haired human with huge dark eyes who didn't want him.

He knew now that what he'd done was all a big mistake -- a stupid, stupid mistake. He should have enjoyed him while he could and never let him know he was different. What if he did something foolish? What if something terrible happened because of him?

And worse, what had he done when he left his house?

"What's wrong?" Jay said, coming home to find Louis in exactly the same place he had been when Jay had left. "That boy dump you?"

Louis turned away. He couldn't deny it, but he didn't want to talk about it, either, because then he'd have to go through the effort of inventing a reason why. The truth, of course, was unrepeatable.

"The nerve of him," Jay proclaimed, but she sounded relieved. "What an idiot! Couldn't he see how lucky he was? Men! They're jerks. No matter what the species. There weren't any phone calls for me?" she added anxiously.

Louis shook his head.

"Oh, baby, I know you feel rotten," Jay said. "But he's not worth the pain. It couldn't have lasted, you know that. You can do better. Much better. You could have Harry -- someone you can be yourself with. You've had your taste of rebellion, now it's time to get real."

Louis didn't have the energy to argue. He'd thought he could be himself with Aiden, and now he was afraid of him.

"I'll make some dinner," Jay said. "I bet you haven't been eating. How about a beer?" She left for the kitchen.

Jay never offered him beer. It was a bribe.

Beer made Louis think of Tooley's. The death behind that bar had been in the news all weekend. Aiden must think it was Louis who was responsible. What if he told someone about him? He needed to talk to him and convince him the murder was nothing to do with Louis. He laughed bitterly. And maybe he could convince himself as well. But he kept on putting off the phone call; he couldn't bear the thought of what he might say.

In the middle of dinner the doorbell rang. Louis inhaled sharply and hope fluttered in his chest, but before he found the sense to rise, Jay bounded to her feet and went to answer the door. Louis sat, his hands clenched around his knife and fork, unable to eat. When Jay came back with Tomas, the newcomer from the Ordeal, Louis felt as if he'd been kicked in the gut.

"I'm going out, baby," Jay said. "You gonna be all right?"

"Sure," Louis replied wryly. After Jay left he went to bed early. Sleep was his only escape. By the next night he could stand it no longer; he waited until Jay had left for Tooley's, then dialed

Aiden's number. Louis hoped he could catch him before he went to work. He answered. "Aiden?" He hung up. He waited, a cold lump in his stomach. Maybe he'd regret hanging up on him and call him back. The phone didn't ring. Perhaps he was waiting for Louis to phone him so it wouldn't look as if he was too eager to give in. Perhaps he needed him to insist. He called again.

He answered. "Aiden, please ..." He hung up again. Louis called back, stabbing the buttons, barely seeing the numbers through the prickling blur in front of his eyes. A recorded message came on. He slammed the phone down and snatched up a dish and flung it against the wall. Paper clips went flying. The dish crashed to the floor and skidded down the hall. Hot tears stung his raw cheeks.

A slip of familiar paper fluttered down to the surface of the table -- Bingo's number. Louis must have left it by the phone when he'd called to thank Bingo for the night of movies and popcorn.

 _Of course,_ Louis thought, and he wiped an arm across his eyes. _I'll call Bingo. She's good friends with Aiden. I'll tell her we've had a fight and he won't talk to me. She'll persuade him for me._ Louis reached for the phone again.

"Bingo. Hi! It's Louis."

"You've got your nerve talking to me." Bingo's voice was taut and angry. Her words left Louis stunned.

"What?"

"You know damn well what," Bingo replied.

But Louis didn't. "I don't understand."

"After what you did to Aiden." _Oh, Great Moon_ , he'd told her, Louis thought. How could he tell her? And how could Bingo sound so matter-of-fact? Shouldn't she be afraid?

"We had a fight," Louis said, trying to get back to the scenario he'd invented, yet floundering in confusion over Bingo's attack.

"A fight! I'll say. Another one of your jealous rages. He told me about them. He was afraid to even look at another person in case you went off on him. I was surprised when he told me. I thought you were more intelligent than that. It just goes to show I can't judge people at all."

"Jealous rages?" Louis found himself repeating stupidly. What lies had Aiden invented?

"Don't act innocent with me," Bingo said. "I've known Aiden for years. I care about him. He usually tells me things. It pisses me off that I didn't even know it was going on. For Christ's sake, you even said I was trying to steal him from you. And after I went out of my way to be friends." Louis could hear the hurt in Bingo's voice and knew she would never believe a denial.

"I love him, Bingo," he said wearily, knowing it was useless. "I did something to frighten him, that's why he told you what he did. I didn't mean to upset him. I would take it back if I could, but I can't. I only want to tell him how sorry I am and to make him understand. Please help me."

Louis could hear the hiss as Bingo inhaled through her clenched teeth before she answered. "He understands perfectly well why you threw a chair through his window when he tried to break up with you," Bingo said. "You're a crazy, jealous, spiteful bitch, and he doesn't want to see you ever again. He's in even deeper shit with his father now. If you want to do something for Aiden, you can send his parents money for that window and then get the hell out of his life." She hung up.

Louis replaced the receiver slowly and quietly, his knuckles white with the effort not to smash the phone to shards. For a moment he had thought he'd found a path to Aiden; now he discovered it blocked by an avalanche of lies.

 _So that's what he's telling them,_ he thought. _I'm a crazy bitch to be avoided. Now he can stop seeing me and keep his friends safe from me at the same time._ Louis ran to his room and threw himself on his bed. He clutched his pillow tightly to his hollow gut. He was so cruel. He didn't want Louis, so he'd made sure nobody would.

But he hadn't told anyone what he was. Did that mean he still cared a little or was he afraid no one would believe him? If there was another killing would he brave their disbelief? He needed to know Aiden's intentions. He needed to know how safe he was. And he needed to see him again, because Louis yearned for his arms around him.

Aiden's car was at the far end of the College City Shopping Center parking lot, by the wooded strip that separated the shops from the movie theater. Perfect. He could sit beneath the trees and watch his car and no one would notice. He could sit still for a long time if need be.

The scant last quarter of the moon wouldn't rise until past midnight, but Vega gleamed brilliantly in the southern sky, the only star bright enough to defy the parking lot lights. Louis longed for the velvet country sky encrusted with stars. Under such a sky, all nights were cool, all nights were joyous, all nights were forever. He made do with fireflies for stars and watched the parking lot through motionless, mildewed leaves.

At ten many of the storefronts dimmed. Employees left close behind the last customers, and the parking lot emptied. At ten-thirty a timer turned off most of the parking lot lights, and the strip where Louis sat was plunged into deeper shadow. The only bright spot left was the undulating marquee lights of the video store, alerting summer-school juniors that there was still time to rent _Surf Nazis Must Die._

At eleven the video store lights went off, and Louis eased into a crouch. Fifteen minutes passed before he heard Aiden's footsteps along the tarmac. Even then, his only movement was the twitching of his nostrils as he took in his scent. He reached his car. His keys jingled. Louis was in motion.

One arm slipped around his waist; a hand went over his mouth. Louis yanked him back under the trees, feeling him squeal against his palm as his feet left the earth. He clutched his back tight against his chest and whispered into his ear, "I can run faster than you, remember."

He trembled at Louis' words, and the smell of his sweat was pungent with fear. It saddened him to threaten Aiden, but he suspected this was the only way he could make him stay. "I want us to talk," he said. "Promise you won't run away or yell."

He nodded, jerking Louis' hand up and down. For a moment he enjoyed the feel of his thighs against Aiden's. He gently licked his ear to show him he wouldn't really damage him. He whimpered and it cut him to the quick. Louis released him.

He turned and stepped back from his arms. "What do you want?" he asked, and his voice was high, his face white.

"I want you to understand," he said. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I wanted to share what I was --what I am -- and give you the magic you were always yearning for. What's so terrible about that?" He was dismayed to feel the tears come to his eyes. He had so desperately wanted to remain calm.

"And what the hell are you, Louis?" he asked, a tremor in his words.

"I am L _oup-garou_. A metamorph. And I am Omega"

"Is that the same as a werewolf?" He still didn't want to believe even though he had seen.

"Yes. Although what I turn into isn't actually a wolf, but it's close."

"And when you drew that pentagram in my hand you were making me your victim," he said.

"Don't be an idiot," Louis answered. "That was a joke."

He took another step backward. "Look, I won't tell anyone," he said. "I promise. Only let me go."

"Aren't you even curious about me?" Louis asked, amazed. "I thought you craved the mystical. You wanted the bizarre, remember? I thought you would grab what I am with both of your hands and eat me up."

"I don't want to know any more, Louis. Please. Let's leave it at that. You go your way. I'll go mine. Okay?"

"Aiden, I thought you cared for me. How can you send me away like that? I want to be with you. I want you to love me."

He at least had the decency to look ashamed. "But it's different now. I mean, how can I ... I mean, everytime I touch you I'll, I mean, I'll know ..."

"Know what? That I have this wonderful ability to turn into a beautiful, strong, swift creature? That I am a Child of the Moon?" The revulsion on his face told Louis different.

"Louis, did you kill that man the other night?" His words came out in a rush.

"Is that what you think? That I'll put on my fur and kill you?" He hung his head and didn't answer. Louis softened his voice and came close to him again. "Aiden, have I ever been anything but loving to you?" Louis saw him tense, but he didn't back away. That gave him hope. "Aiden, have I ever been anything but willing? " She stroked his chest with his fingers, and he raised his head to meet Louis' eyes. "You don't want a tame boy, do you?"

"No!" He flinched back. "I can't. I'm sorry." And he did truly sound sorry.

"You don't trust me," Louis said, frustration making him angry. "Do you think I can't control my other self? Do you think my teeth will grow as I lose myself in your pleasure?"

"I want to trust you, Louis," he said, sadness creeping into his voice, "but every time I think of kissing you I see that other face. All the time I think, 'What has that mouth done?' and I don't think I can ever kiss you again."

His words piled like cold stones inside of Louis.

"You're a coward," Louis said. "I thought you were different from the rest, open-minded, but you're just like those parents you despise. At the first sign of the unusual you run. You tell lies about me and make people hate me. You take away my friends. You're the monster, not me. I only wanted to love you."

He took the necklace Aiden had given him from around his neck and hurled it at him. "Maybe you made me your victim."

His hand slapped to his chest and trapped the pendant as it slithered down his shirt. "Go," Louis said fiercely. He looked at her in surprise. "Go now," he repeated. He didn't trust her rage.

"I'm sorry it had to end this way," he said as he backed slowly away. "I really am."

"You think it's ended?" Louis whispered as his car door closed. "Oh, no. You'll be seeing me."


	22. twenty-two

**AUGUST**

_Satyr's Moon_

Louis clung to a log in the clearing at the back of his house, as if he were an alligator motionless in a swamp. The sodden evening air of August enhanced the illusion, and the pattern of the bark became his pattern, as his flesh pressed into the wood. He curled his toes and savored the crunch as his nails bit gouges in the log. The odor of mold and damp moss intensified as he crushed the bark, until the air smelled like a cemetery. Motionless and silent once more, he allowed the creaking evening chorus to monopolize the woods with their see-saw, chirp-chirp, grind-grind, eternal white noise. He envied their cacophonous serenity.

A nearby rustle announced a predator's careful tread, and his eyes opened slightly. He walked discreetly but wasn't trying to conceal his approach. How polite, Louis thought. He sniffed the salty tang of a young male, often aroused. Overlaid was a comfortable intimate smell like a warm bed slept in, and the faint hint of baby powder and spearmint chewing gum. Willem.

He paused beside the log as if trying to decide whether to wake Louis.

He rolled and grabbed his legs. The momentum sent him tumbling. Louis bit his calf as he fell. He yelped. He threw himself on top of Willem, pinning his arms and leaning a knee with gentle menace into his groin.

"Boo!" he pleaded. "I didn't mean nothin'. Boo, let me up."

Maybe it was his use of Louis' baby name, or maybe it was his soft bewildered eyes, but the heat of his anger dissolved, and he slid to one side, releasing him.

"Damn, Boo, I thought you were gonna hurt me." He scrambled to his knees, one hand covering his crotch.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Willem wiped his nose with his fist and glanced at Louis sideways. His smile was the old, gentle smile. "I went into Tooley's, you know, so they could enjoy throwing me out, and your Mom cornered me. She said since I didn't have anything better to do I could get my ass over here and keep you company. Said you hadn't gone out in weeks." He raised his eyebrows and cocked his head in a way that would have made Louis laugh three million years ago. "Want me to beat him up for you?"

 _How dare she?_ Louis thought. _Who gave her the right to broadcast my private business?_ "I can do my own beating up, thanks," he told Willem coldly.

Willem grimaced. "Yeah. Silly me."

"Why aren't you with those other gangsters?" he asked.

Willem shrugged, a frown touching his face. He kicked at the log with one of his engineer boots. "Oh, Finn thinks he's hot shit -- pushing us around 'cus Zayn's not there to slap him down. I mean, Zayn's bad enough, but at least he doesn't make us do dumb-ass stuff to prove he can make us do it. Liam doesn't like that either so they're always arguing, and you know Niall -- dumb little turd'll go along with anything. At least Finn isn't screwing his mother."

"Zayn's always off with Astrid?" Louis asked.

"Yeah. At her place. Helping her 'recuperate.' He thinks the sun shines out of her ass. I don't get it." Willem shook his head. "I don't blame him for staying there, though. His dad's being weirder than ever."

They sat in silence for a while as the night darkened around them. "We used to have fun, Lou, didn't we?" Willem said finally. "Now I wonder who's looking out for me besides me. Those older ones, all they do is talk. And Harry, who's he? Is he gonna make us do stupid shit like Finn does, just to show he's boss? You know what? I think you're the only person I trust. You're cool. You never let us talk you into doing stupid shit." Willem fell silent again.

 _Oh, yeah. I'm so cool,_ Louis thought.

"You know who did that killing, Lou?" Willem said suddenly. Louis' stomach turned over. "Nobody knows," he continued. "That weirds me out. One of us killing, and nobody knowing who. Killing used to be something we did together." A faint breeze picked up and heat lightning patch-worked the sky. Willem sighed.

Louis gently punched him in the ribs. "Get out of here. Tell Finn where to stick it. Stand up for yourself, asshole."

He grinned sheepishly. "Maybe I will."

"Well, go do it now," Louis said. "I need to be alone."

"Okay, okay." Willem got to his feet. He hesitated. "But you stand up for yourself, too, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

Louis walked down Lincoln Avenue toward the park. He was going to stop moping and stand up for himself, like Willem had said. There was a free concert this evening: six local bands hoping to draw new fans into the college bars up the road. The Amoeba would certainly be there, and Aiden with them. Louis had been making life too easy for him; it was time to make him look at Louis and remember how beautiful he was; then maybe Aiden would realize what a fool he'd been for rejecting him.

He had brushed his tawny hair until it shone, and summer highlights made it shimmer with silver fire. His cropped shirt revealed his flat, taut belly above his low-slung jeans. His flesh was smooth, soft, and golden.

A sign on a telephone pole caught her eye; it was the third one she'd passed. This time he stopped to read and discovered a message from the police, warning the public to avoid any large dogs they saw running loose. He snorted with amusement. He suddenly felt better than he had for days.

Louis was walking under the raspberry sherbet froth of a crepe myrtle when he heard the growl of a motorcycle approaching. He expected it to scream past and was surprised when it slowed to a grumbling presence beside him. He glanced over to see Harry's black Harley pacing him. Harry's expression was dark and brooding and a streak of fear ripped through Louis. Then Harry grinned and cut the engine.

He stopped when Harry's bike stopped, as if unable to control his movements.

He looked Louis up and down, the admiration clear on his face. "All alone, baby? I find that hard to believe."

"Then don't," Louis said. Why had he come to ruin Louis' good mood?

He ignored her terse rudeness. "Rumor has it your boyfriend broke up with you."

"Does everyone know my business?" he snapped.

"What puzzles me," he continued, "is why?"

"That's nothing to do with you," he said, and began to walk again. Inside he quivered. What was he getting at?

Harry pushed his bike along beside Louis. "I mean, look at you. He must be out of his mind. Where would someone like him find another like you?"

Louis walked faster. Harry matched his pace. "You'd have to work hard to put off a horny young guy like that."

Louis turned on him, furious. "Go to hell!"

His eyes mocked Louis. "Was it something you said, perhaps?" Louis didn't know whether to scream or hit him. He was damned if he would see Louis cry. Even if he deserved an explanation, which he didn't, Louis could never tell him the truth. If he knew he was capable of betraying what he was to an outsider, then he might believe he was capable of other betrayals.

"Louis." His eyes lost the mockery they had held a moment before. "If you ever want to talk, you may be surprised at what a good listener I can be." The dark purr of his voice was almost soothing. "If you're in a muddle, I'm good at untying knots," he said. "And if something comes up that ..." He thought for a moment as if choosing his words. "That even you can't handle, I've got muscle to spare. No questions asked. Okay?"

Louis had never thought of him as kind, but for a moment he wanted to fling himself into Harry's arms and tell him everything. The moment passed. That would be stupid. Right now he thought him a lovesick puppy, that was all, and perhaps he was only taking advantage of Louis' grief.

"Thanks for your concern," he said, and wished he could sound gentler.

"Want a ride?" Harry asked. "Going to the concert, right?"

Louis thought a second. "Yeah," he said as a sort of apology. Anyhow, it would do Aiden good if he saw Louis arrive with a suitor the other people obviously found desirable. As he threw a leg over the bike, he noticed the duffel strapped on the back. "Going somewhere?"

"Coming back," he answered. "I went to Pennsylvania. There's a pack up there. I wanted to find out if they'd had any rogue wolves there recently -- a renegade out for human blood who might have run this way."

"Any luck?" He didn't expect Harry to say yes.

"Nah. I'm going down to Charleston tomorrow, to see what they have to say." He kicked the bike's engine into life. "If they hadn't scrubbed down that parking lot I might not have had to go through this," he yelled over the engine. "Maybe I could have picked up a scent."

Louis silently thanked Tooley for his cleanliness. But what if that hadn't been his spoor in Tooley's parking lot? Life would have been miserable, but less complicated. _Ah, but what if it had been?_ Louis looked at Harry's powerful shoulders and shivered.

Harry pulled away from the curb, and Louis steadied himself by lightly holding Harry's waist above the dusty leather jacket he'd knotted around his hips. There was no softness to his midsection. If he had been any other male, Louis would have run his hands up his muscled back and explored the hardness of him; he would have pressed himself close and teased him. But this was Harry. He didn't behave like other males.

He didn't know how to act with Harry. A nervous thought skittered through his mind: If Louis made him his lover would Harry protect him? Or would he kill him just the same if he was the rogue? _I'm crazy,_  he thought, warding off the idea.

At the park he jumped the curb, and Louis clutched him despite himself and heard him laugh over the roar of the engine. He cruised down a tarmac path, ignoring the shouts of an elderly man in green work pants, and brought Louis right into the audience. The crowd parted like the Red Sea. Some people laughed and cheered, others feigned disinterest. If he wanted attention, he had it, but he didn't care. There was only one person he was interested in.

Louis scanned the crowd. There, close to the makeshift stage, he spotted Quince and Bingo. They had turned like the others to find the source of the noise. Quince raised his arm to wave to him, then lowered it quickly when Bingo elbowed him. Around them were others he knew. His breath caught in his throat when he spotted Aiden. He was staring right at him, his mouth slightly parted.

He ripped his gaze away and climbed off the bike. _What do I do? What do I do?_ Against all common sense, he stepped up on the footrest and pressed his lips to Harry's. _Oh, Bloody Moon, I'm an idiot,_  he thought. It was meant to be a brief kiss to make Aiden jealous, over before Harry realized what was happening. He didn't expect the swiftness with which he encircled Louis' waist with his arm. Suddenly he found himself half across the gas tank and crushed against his chest, Louis' feet off the ground, metal digging into his right knee. Harry's practiced tongue parted Louis' lips while he clung to him to stop himself from falling. He felt the heat of him searing him through his shirt and smelled his musky scent growing rich and suggestive. Then he let Louis go, and he slid to the ground and staggered backward.

His eyes smoldered beneath half-closed lids. "Don't use me," he growled. Then he revved his engine, echoing the threat. Louis watched him leave, his face blazing, his breath harsh in his throat. _Damn him_ , he cursed silently. He couldn't be controlled. He resisted the urge to swipe at anyone he found looking at him.

 _I knew Harry would not be fooled,_  he complained to himself as he made his way through the crowd. _So why did I go right ahead and kiss him anyway?_ Seeing Aiden must have made his brain soft.

It wasn't hard to charm a young man into making space for him a few yards away from the Amoeba. He saw Aiden glance nervously over. Good, he knew where Louis was. He smiled to think of how his eyes would keep on creeping back to him no matter how he tried to look away. _I'll have him,_  he thought.

Aiden stood. Louis' heart leaped. He was coming to him. He wouldn't have to patiently seduce.

But he didn't turn his way. Kelly ran through the crowd. She flung herself into his arms, and he hugged her and laughed while she kissed his neck.

A hot sun of rage rose in Louis' chest.


	23. twenty-three

Louis waited until it was dark to leave. He was damned if Aiden would see him driven away. He watched two bands perform through tear-blurred eyes, but the music was meaningless noise -- he never clapped, and he never rose to dance like the others around him -- and each peal of laughter that drifted over from the Amoeba made his stomach clench and his shoulders stiffen, until he was almost rigid with anger. He wouldn't look that way or he would shatter, for sure.

"You all right?" the guy beside him asked, obviously longing to comfort him.

"Yeah." The word came out a harsh whisper, and he shook his head when he tried to put his arm around him. He backed off, grabbed a beer from his buddy, and yelled encouragement at the stage, covering rejection with bravado.

Finally the dusk deepened and the bright stage lights came on, blinding the audience to those around them. When everyone stood to cheer the outgoing band, Louis stood with them and slipped off.

He picked her way through the crowd, between blankets and coolers, over legs and backpacks. He passed couples tangy with sweat and cheap wine, and groups of young men reeking with the burping ripeness of beer. Across the cooling air drifted the smoke of cigarettes and marijuana. He cursed them for their happy oblivion.

He found the river and followed it upstream toward his home. When he was back in his territory, he dove into the tall grass and rolled there, clutching himself as if to crush the pain, but his misery broke loose and he shrieked his curses at the sky. He raged at himself and the boy, and cried hot tears.

"I am beautiful!" he screamed hoarsely. "Why can't he see that?" He ripped at the grass, dug holes in the earth, and flung the soil into the night.

He didn't hear someone approaching. "Jeez, Lou, could you make a little more noise?" Louis went rigid, his hands clutching the front of his shirt. One lengthening nail snicked through the cotton and pricked his chest. Zayn sauntered around him and bent to peer in his face. "Upset?"

"Fuck you."

"Why don't you take care of him, Lou? He deserves it. You could do that -- couldn't you?" He lunged at Zayn and tried to tear off a piece of his face. He jumped back, laughing.

"Save that for your meat-boy, Lou." Then he was gone.

Louis curled into a ball to stifle his sobs, ashamed that Zayn had seen him out of control. After a while, even his crying ceased, and he crouched in the prickling grass with his arms tight around his knees, his nose full of the dust of summer hay. Gradually he slid to his side in a crumpled rag-doll heap.

There was rustling in the grass, and this time Louis recognized the leather and tartness that was Zayn before he reached Louis. He could feel him standing over him but he ignored him. Zayn nudged him gently with his toe, then slid something long, cold, and smooth into the crook of Louis' arm. He opened his eyes and bared his teeth at him.

"It doesn't solve anything," he said, and he was taken aback by the unaccustomed pity in his eyes. "But it makes you numb for a while." Then he left.

He had given Louis a bottle. He didn't even bother to read the label, but unscrewed the top and took a swig. He sputtered, losing half his mouthful in a spray. He was prepared for the second mouthful, even though every drop carved a burning path to his gut. The third gulp brought on the beginnings of the promised numbness. _I owe Zayn one_ , he thought, and laughed bitterly. He wondered if the whole bottle would wipe out his pain, or would it kill him?

 _If they find me dead of alcohol poisoning in the morning, that'll serve Aiden right_ , he thought. _He'll know it's his fault_. He took another swig. _Everything's his fault._ And another swig. _I was okay before he hurt me._ And another swig. _I never had a blackout before. I never woke up with blood all over me before. Its all his fault. I might have done something terrible, and it's ... all... his.. .fault._

The more he drank, the more reasons he found to hate him.

 _And then he flings that bitch in my face,_ Louis fumed. Kelly had been waiting for this chance all along. _How long did it take her to show up on his doorstep after she found out we'd split?_ Louis wondered. _Not long, I bet. Dammit, if that cow had left him alone, I'd have him back. The scheming, filthy little white-fleshed grub._

 _I wanted to love you_ , he thought miserably as he held the bottle in an embrace. The liquor didn't burn now, but was warm and comforting; thinking of Kelly and Aiden burned. _I'd like to feel my teeth in her throat,_ Louis thought. _I'd like to slit her gullet._ But the image of a yellow police ribbon came to him unbidden, and he shook his head violently. The action left him feeling slightly sick. _No, no,_  he thought. _Bad boy. Can't do that, can I?_ Then an idea brought a thin smile to his lips, and made the warmth of the liquor burn brighter. _But I could scare her real good_.

"And where might I accomplish this delicious task?" he asked aloud. His words slurred, and for some stupid reason this made him laugh. "Where, where ..." He laughed again. "I know where you live, Kelly." He almost sang the words.

He struggled to his feet and tottered a few steps, and when he remembered the bottle he almost fell over retrieving it.

It took Louis twenty minutes to lope down deserted, lamplit streets to Kelly's home, and his gait became steadier as he found his rhythm. At the house he looked around to see if anyone watched, then slunk into the shadow of the hedge that bordered the side of the yard.

There was a car in the driveway of the small brick rambler, and all the windows were dark, but the lights on either side of the front door were on. It was way after midnight; was Kelly not home yet?

Louis opened the bottle and took a drink, then leaped a white picket fence into the backyard. His landing was more of a stagger. He could taste the liquor when he inhaled, as if he breathed its vapor instead of air.

He peered into three windows before he found the room he wanted -- a small bedroom papered with rock band posters. The bed was empty. Louis growled at the back of his throat, imagining Kelly in another bed -- Aiden's. _Gonna wait for you, girl._ He tried prying open the casement window with his fingers, but it was locked from inside. _What now?_ He wiped the sweat from his brow with a downy forearm.

A quick tour of the yard turned up a shed. The chain holding the door closed snapped like a candy cane. Inside were a lawn mower, gas cans, a bench laden with pots, and garden tools dangling neatly on pegs.

On one of the pegs hung a roll of duct tape. He took that and a trowel and went back to Kelly's window. The air was a soup of moisture and insects. In the distance thunder snarled.

He ripped off lengths of tape with his teeth and plastered them over a windowpane, then hit the mess with the trowel. The tape deadened the noise, and the broken glass peeled away easily. Through the hole, he flicked the lock, turned the handle, and let himself into the cool, dark room.

Louis carefully closed the bedroom door, drew the curtains, then turned on a lamp beside the bed. He winced at the light. A few seconds passed before he could look around through squinting eyes.

The room was that of a little girl gone bad. Beneath the haphazard pictures full of naked chests, flannel, and tattoos, he could see pink, flowered wallpaper. There was an ink-stained pink ruffle around the dressing table, and a loving mother still made the bed up in pink sheets, although it was probably the daughter who had thrown a black down comforter on top. An old stuffed tiger lolled its head on the pillow.

 _Great Moon, what am I doing here?_ Louis thought. _This i_ _s crazy. Kelly didn't do anything I wouldn't do_. Suddenly he yearned for his own room, his own bed. Waiting seemed stupid and useless. Gotta get out of here, he decided.

"Here, have a present, Kelly." Louis smacked the bottle down on the dresser amid jars of makeup, bangles, pens, and tapes. The bottle tipped when he let go, and he grabbed for it, then noticed the chain underneath that had set it off balance. On the end of the chain was a pentagram.

As he picked up the pentagram his nails lengthened to claws and hair grew in a prickling trail down his back. "He gave it to you?" His words were a whisper of strangled outrage. Was this the same necklace he had thrown back at Aiden? Was he so callous he could turn around and give it to someone else? Or did he give everyone a pentagram? Tears coursed down his cheeks as he bent the charm in half. I thought I was special.

He clicked off the light.

"I hate pink," he spat, and pierced a curtain with his claws, shredding it down to the hem. He turned both curtains to ribbons, savoring the sound of tearing and the tingling vibrations in his fingertips.

He went to the closet. The clothes hung in ranks -- in front of the door were the black outfits Kelly favored, to either side were cheerful items most likely bought by a worried mother and only worn at family occasions after much pleading. Louis shredded the black clothes.

He turned to the bed.

His first swipe at the comforter sent feathers flying. They made him think of killing chickens, and he drooled as his claws swiped faster, faster, until the bed was a pile of down and pink-and-black rags. He lowered himself into this nest and his muzzle grew.

 _Hello, Little Red Riding Hood,_ he thought.

He remained in a half-state -- part boy, part creature -- and is toes curled and uncurled with the pleasure of imagining Kelly's face when she saw what was in her bed. He could be finished and gone before Kelly's screams brought her parents running -- or so the alcohol told him. But as the minutes ticked away the pleasure began to dim, and he turned back to boy. Was Kelly coming home at all?

Louis retrieved the bottle and gulped from it, his throat now dead to the burn. His vision was blurred, and shadows dissolved into disconcerting gray tweed. His head throbbed. H listened for the front door, but heard only snores and the creaks and groans of a nighttime house. He paced unsteadily, but whenever he stopped, the room began to turn, so he kept on moving. Every so often he picked up one of the cassettes from the dresser and unraveled it, strewing tape across the room.

The clock did away with luminous minutes until it was three A.M. "She's not coming home," Louis growled. "The bitch is not coming home." He climbed through the window, scraping his shins, and tumbled onto the grass outside. He struggled to his feet, and somehow made it back over the fence without turning upside down, then set off down the road.

He knew where Kelly was. "I will rip you from his arms," Louis promised. "I will rip you." The night contracted to a pinpoint of hate.


	24. twent-four

p>Louis woke with a start. He didn't remember coming to bed. He groped for some memory of brushing his teeth or undressing, but nothing came. Carefully he opened his eyes. A pain beat at his head like a mallet in a sock; the other sock covered his tongue. His whole body ached.

This was too much like another recent morning. His heart pounded.

Louis sat up amid his twisted sheets. He was naked. He looked around the room for the clothes he had worn the night before. The back of his desk chair was bare. There were no rumpled piles on the floor. Where were his clothes? He forced down the rising panic.

The early-morning breeze that wafted through the open window was damp but cool. The window screen was ripped across its entire width -- enough for a person to climb through, a person without the wits to raise an obstinate frame. There was dirt on the floor.

Louis looked down at himself. He was streaked with green mud as if he'd been in the river. He snatched up his hands and inspected his nails. They were pink, tipped with white. He exhaled audibly. There was no blood, thank the Moon.

He began to relax. He'd been drunk last night, that was all. So what if he'd stripped off his clothes and run around on all fours for a while? He deserved it. Instinct had probably kicked in and kept him to the woods. Yes, he'd been stupid to go to Kelly's house, but thankfully he'd gotten the hell out of there before anyone discovered him. _I don't think I went to Aiden's,_  he thought. Of course he didn't remember how he'd become muddy either.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and moaned. The sheets were dragged with him. And that's when a hand fell on the floor with a small soft thud.

Louis froze. The room spun out of focus. The only clear thing, sharp-edged, real beyond real, was a severed hand lying palm up on his bedroom rug. The flesh was pale and slightly puckered, as if it had been in the river with him. There were tooth marks in the palm. At the wrist was a ragged fringe of skin that surrounded a dark crusty core and a bone that protruded white. The bone had been crushed so someone could suck the marrow.

He saw a ring on the middle finger. Choking back the bile, he stuck out a foot and flipped the clammy hand over, then recoiled. The ring was a silver skull. It belonged to the biker who'd come on to him outside Tooley's, the one he'd told Gabriel he'd smack around.

He breathed fast and shallow like an animal in a trap. _I've got to get rid of it,_  he thought.

Had anyone seen him? Had he left a trail to his house? He rushed to the window and looked out. A mist rose from the grass, but there was nothing unusual outside.  _What if Jay came in?_ He ran to the door and locked it. Despite the cool breeze he was bathed in sweat. He had to hide the hand until he could get it out of the house.

He looked around desperately. The wolves painted on the wall seemed to laugh at him. He yanked open the closet door. In a boot? No, he'd never wear them again. He noticed a Timberland shoe box up on the shelf. Perfect. He nudged the top off, retrieved the hand, and, carrying it gingerly by its waxy thumb, reached up and dropped it in. There was a rustle of tissue paper, and for one heart-stopping moment he imagined it writhing in there. He stifled a hysterical giggle and dropped the lid on the box.

Jay was still in bed; her door was closed. Rudy was out. Louis showered and dressed as fast as he could; then he shook the hand from the box into a cheap nylon fanny pack, which he strapped on. His skin crawled as he walked out the kitchen door.

In the thickest part of the undergrowth out back, he sat on his haunches and rubbed garlic and pepper into the hand as if it were a leg of lamb. He hoped the smell would drive away any dog that might try to dig it up. _I can't believe I'm doing this,_  he thought. He'd had dreams that seemed more real.

He couldn't seem to make a hole deep enough. _Just a few more inches,_  he kept on telling himself. _I can't let anyone discover it._ If Harry found out he'd kill Louis for the safety of the pack, whether or not he wanted him for a mate. He saw in the granite of Harry's face swift justice and questions later, no matter what he said about being a good listener and his boasts of muscle to spare for Louis' protection.

Finally he tossed the hand in and scrambled to fill the hole, his knees bent ready to dive through the scrub if anyone approached, his mouth metallic with fear. He prayed to the Moon that it would stay there undisturbed.

Inside, Jay was up. She sat at the table drinking a cup of coffee while a news show on the radio droned on quietly. Tomas was with her. They looked like a wet funeral.

"Look who came tapping at my window at dawn," Jay said, with only a glimmer of her usual sly grin.

Louis' breath caught in his throat, but nothing in Tomas's expression suggested that their paths had crossed. "What's up?" he asked, knowing already.

Jay got up for another cup from the cabinet. "Someone found another body. The news said it was mutilated, but they wouldn't say how."

"The police hold that sort of information back," explained Tomas. "That way only the real killer will know the details, and they can weed out cranks who confess for attention."

"Where was it found?" Louis asked.

"Over by the university," Jay answered, bringing Louis some coffee. "Behind one of the temporary buildings where they're gonna build the new art department." The street Kelly lived on was only blocks from that side of the campus. "I know, baby," Jay comforted, misinterpreting Louis' pale face. "We all feel the same way." Tomas reached out and stroked Jay's hand. She grabbed his fingers and held on. "What must you think of us?" she said. "Honestly, you just happened to come along right when things started to go crazy. We'll get this mess sorted out..." She realized she was babbling and shut up.

The sound of the radio seemed to swell to fill the void left by her silence, so no one missed the news bulletin: "In a bizarre new twist in the latest, so-called 'beast murder,' an inside source reports police have been the recipient of an anonymous phone call claiming the two murders are the work of werewolves. Chief Detective Sirilla refused to comment. " The news reporter had some difficulty concealing his amusement, but regained his awareness of bad taste before he made a joke."These are, of course, serious crimes, and police would appreciate any real information that would lead to an arrest."

Jay leaned back in her chair and turned off the radio. "Shit, shit, shit."

"But who would know?" Tomas asked. "Who could possibly know?" He was flushed and angry. Louis was well aware of who it was. _How could he do that?_  he thought in dismay. After all those sweet kisses, how could he think Louis could kill? He might doubt himself, but he had given Aiden no reason to doubt him. Just because he could change into an animal didn't mean he would behave like a mindless brute. Then he remembered shredding Kelly's clothes. _Sweet Moon,_  he thought. _Why wouldn't he think me capable of violence?_

Something else chilled him: The newscaster had said werewolves. But news people got details wrong all the time, he'd heard. Maybe Aiden had told the police werewolf, singular. He couldn't have said werewolves. _What did I tell Aiden when I changed?_  he thought. Had he at any time implied that there were more than one of his kind? Had he guessed that Louis' whole family was like him?

"They won't believe the caller," Tomas said. "They'll think he's a nut." He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself as much as Jay.

"But what if there's one of those vigilante creeps out there?" Jay asked.

Louis rose to leave the kitchen, afraid of what was showing on his face. "Bathroom," he mumbled as he went through the door to the dining room.

Aiden wouldn't have expected his phone call to make the news. _He must be wetting his pants right now,_  he thought. _He'll know I know who told._ The idea should have cheered him up; instead it depressed him. _I would never hurt you,_  he promised silently. _I couldnt hurt you. I love you._  He gazed out the dining room window in time to see two police officers coming up the front path.


	25. twenty-five

"Go get Harry," Jay told Louis.

"No, I'll go," Tomas said, scrambling to his feet and flying through the back door.

"Thanks a lot for your support," Jay called after him. "Well, answer the door then," she snapped at Louis in a voice brittle with nerves. "You saw them coming." Louis walked briskly to the door before he could change his mind and run off like Tomas.

"We'd like to speak to Louis Tomlinson," said the woman cop, and Louis' heart flip-flopped.

"That's me," he said. His words came out in a squeak.

"We'd like to ask you some questions," the woman said. The blood roared in Louis' ears like a train. He wanted to slam the door shut, but that wouldn't make them disappear. "You'd better come in," he said.

"What's wrong?" Jay asked, coming down the hall.

"They want to ask me some questions, Mom," Louis said. His voice was high-pitched like a child's.

"About what?"

"Perhaps we could sit down," said the male officer. Jay led them into the living room. _Did Aden tell them about me?_ Louis tried to swallow. _Or did I leave a trail?_ But if they had followed a trail, how would they know his name?

The police officers took the chairs on either side of the fireplace. Louis sat on the edge of the couch next to Jay. He had to force his foot down firmly into the carpet to make his left leg stop trembling.

"Do you know a girl called Kelly Desmond?" the female officer asked. Louis' mouth dropped open in surprise.

"Do you, hon?" Jay prompted when Louis didn't respond.

"Uh, yes?" Louis answered, trying to look innocent and puzzled, sure he was failing miserably.

"Were you aware there was a break-in at her house last night?" the woman continued.

"How would I be?" Louis asked, gaining confidence. This was crazy; there were cops in his living room quizzing him about a break-in he'd committed, but he felt like laughing with relief.

"You're not close then?" the male cop said.

"Hell, no."

"We think that whoever broke into the house had a grudge against Ms. Desmond," said the man.

 _Then I just gave the wrong answer,_ Louis thought. "Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Because her room was vandalized and the rest of the house left untouched," the female officer said.

"Vandalized? How?"

"We're not free to say right now," the woman answered. Louis remembered what Tomas had said earlier about the police not revealing details that only the criminal would know.

He had to be careful. "Why do you want to talk to my daughter about this?" demanded Jay.

"We understand that you might have a reason to be angry at Ms. Desmond," the male officer said to Louis. "According to Ms. Desmond, you might be jealous because she's going out with your ex-boyfriend."

 _Sweet Moon_ , Louis thought. _I'm not out of trouble yet._  

He drew himself up to make a show of indignation. "And she thinks I'd break into her house and trash her room over that?"

"It seems likely to her, yes," answered the man.

"And what about the other people she's pissed off?" Louis asked. He could feel the sweat soaking his armpits. "Kelly's not exactly known for her pleasant disposition. Ask anyone."

"Nevertheless," said the policewoman, "we have to ask where you were last night between the hours of midnight and six A.M."

"He was with me."

Louis' gaze jerked in surprise to the living room door. Harry stood there, his hands in his jeans pockets.

Jay started to speak, but Harry cut her off. "I'm sorry, Jay. We meant to tell you about us at a more convenient time. We spent the night at my apartment."

Jay rose to the occasion. "Harry! I trusted you."

Louis grabbed at the alibi; what else could he do? "As you can see," he pointed out boldly. "I'm not pining for my ex-boyfriend."

"Can anyone confirm your story?" asked the male officer. Louis couldn't miss the disapproval in his eyes.

"Ask Bucky Dideron," Harry suggested. "He's my downstairs neighbor. He saw us leave early this morning. He complained we'd kept him up half the night."

Louis blushed furiously. He could imagine how he and Harry were supposed to have accomplished that. Apparently the cops could too, because they didn't ask further questions. They took Harry's and Bucky's names and addresses, then left after promising they would get back in touch if they had any more questions.

"What the hell is going on?" Jay asked Louis when the door closed behind the police.

"Look, I had a few drinks. I made a mistake, okay?" Louis headed for the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee he didn't want.

Jay followed him. "That's a helluva mistake."

Louis turned away, but Jay walked around him to stay in Louis' face. "I take it you really were in that girl's house." Louis didn't answer. "Are you crazy?" Jay screamed. "Don't we have enough problems?"

"Let me speak with Louis," Harry said. Louis hadn't even noticed him entering the kitchen.

"I'll speak to my own daughter, thank you," Jay answered. "This is family business."

"When the police are involved, it's pack business," Harry said. "Go call Bucky." His eyes glittered as he stared Jay down without blinking. Louis wondered how he could stand there so nonchalantly and still look as if he was ready to spring.

"Have it your way," Jay finally spat, and stormed off.

"You got here fast," Louis said.

"I was already on my way to see Rudy, as it happens. Tomas almost knocked me off my feet." Louis noticed that the glitter in his eyes seemed more like humor now. "I didn't know an alibi was needed, but I'm glad to help out."

"Well, you needn't have come up with such a disgusting one." Louis sat down and tried to ignore him.

"I don't find the idea disgusting," he said. He didn't pretend to hide his smile now, but it was fleeting. "The cops were right, weren't they? You were jealous."

Louis took a sip of coffee and grimaced. He'd forgotten sugar. "Homo sapiens can be very attractive," he said, sitting at the table with Louis. Louis had expected him to chastise him. He raised her eyebrows in surprise but didn't say a word.

"The need to dominate is bred into us," Harry continued, "and they are easy to dominate. It's seductive, this power over them. And they're so fragile, there are those you almost want to protect." He laughed softly, and Louis wished he could laugh too, except he remembered Aiden's shocked white face.

"But they're dangerous," Harry said. "They're desperately afraid of things they can't understand, and there's more of them than us. They can't fight us fairly so they gang up on us with fire and blades, or betray us from the shadows with silver bullets. Louis, you can't force him to love you if he's chosen elsewhere. You have to let go. You can't confuse the desire to dominate and protect with love. If you continue this way you'll end up hurting this girl, and the police already have you connected with her. Or worse, you'll give yourself away to the boy -- then you'll have to kill him because, I swear to the Moon, he'll try to kill you."

Louis was amazed to see pain in his eyes and wondered why it was there. Suddenly he wished he could tell him everything because maybe he'd understand. But he couldn't. She'd be crazy to. According to Harry's philosophy, he'd already brought doom upon himself by revealing his secret.

 _But Aiden's sweet and gentle,_ he thought. _He wouldn't try to kill me. His way of coping is to run away from me._

"I thought he loved me," was all he could say to Harry. "Then he went off with her."

There was tenderness in the curve of Harry's lips. "Then let him go, Louis. He's a fool if he didn't recognize what a fine creature you are." He stroked Louis' cheek and for once Louis didn't pull away. He needed those words desperately.

Louis heard the front door rattle open and Rudy's excited voice. Harry's hand dropped to his side, and Louis felt as if he'd reached for a handhold and clutched at air.

Rudy and Jay came into the kitchen. "You've heard the news, right?" said Rudy. "Another one found dead."

"Yeah." Harry looked grim again. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to call a meeting here tonight. We have to discuss what to do." Rudy was quick to agree.

"I'm going back to bed," Louis said to no one in particular. "I don't feel too good."

"Don't drink if you can't hack it," Jay said.

Harry was kinder. "You'll feel better after some sleep. We'll see you tonight, won't we?" Louis nodded mutely. It was in his best interests to know what the pack had planned. At the meeting, Harry paired most of the pack with partners; then he set up patrol routes. "This way we catch the killer in the act," he said, "or maybe stop him from acting at all if he knows about the patrols."

Astrid claimed she was still recovering from her wounds. "I mustn't tax myself," she purred at Harry, and touched the black patch she wore over one eye, which made her look like a cartoon villainess; so he assigned her to help Jenny Garnier with the children. Astrid curled her lip, but didn't object.

"That'll scare the little bastards into behaving," Jay muttered.

"I'll stay at my place and coordinate communications," Harry said. He pointed at Liam and Finn. "You'll be my runners for the first shift and you'll only be out of my sight if something goes down. You'll be second shift," he continued, pointing at Zayn and Niall. "And I strongly suggest you wait at Aunt Persia's if you don't nap at my place, 'cus if anyone's killed while you're on the loose, you'll get a close-up of my teeth." Louis was surprised when they didn't argue. Maybe they were enjoying the excitement.

"Willem, you're with Louis," Harry said. "Get to know him again. I think I can trust you to take good care of him."

Louis noted the look of pride that Willem tried to cover when he saw Finn making kissing noises at him. "I don't need looking after," he protested.

Harry's frown turned into a smile just for him. "I'll be the judge of that." He glared at Harry.

"Why can't I team with my wife?" complained Rolf Wagner. _He's still not ready for Harry as leader_ , Louis thought.

Harry explained. "I want the teams made up of people who don't generally hang together. That cuts down on the chances of someone covering for another person. It's not perfect, but it'll give people alibis if something happens."

"It's so wonderful to be trusted," sneered Lucian Dafoe. A few grumbles around the room proved there were some who agreed with him. Aunt Persia banged her cane on the ground for silence. Louis saw Astrid whisper to Zayn.

"I think you have some other business," reminded Orlando Griffin.

Harry raised a hand in acknowledgment. "Yes. It's more important than ever for us to get out of this area now. We've put it off long enough. I don't know how much this police informant knows about us --maybe it was only a lucky guess -- but if the police don't do anything, and this person knows who we are, he or she may be crazy enough to come after us alone. Rudy's agent has provided a list of rural properties that fit our needs. I plan to visit them and make a decision soon."

"If we don't find the killer before we move, we might be taking the problem with us," said Bucky in a voice raspier than it used to be. Louis hadn't seen him since the Ordeal. His throat was knotted with scars where the blond outsider had savaged him. He shivered slightly, remembering the way Bucky had gone crazy at the taste of blood. If he hadn't been so confused about his own involvement with the killings, his money would have been on Bucky. He noted a few others inspecting him warily.

"At least, then, we'd know it was one of us," said Magda. Her mouth looked tight, her face pinched. Her sister-in-law, Renata, nodded in support.

Raul put his arm around Renata protectively. "How could this informant know about us? Who would give us away to them?"

"Who would hang out with meat-people?" said Astrid, looking at Louis pointedly. Louis' heart skipped a beat. Jay leaped to her feet, but Tomas tugged at her arm and she sat down again.

"It's terms like 'meat-people' that foster the attitude that's gotten us into this mess, someone yelled. Louis missed who.

Harry raised his hands to quiet the swell of voices. "We all have dealings with Homo sapiens in our everyday lives," he said. "It would look strange if we didn't mix. Any one of us could have talked. Even you," he said to Astrid.

Astrid snarled at him. The others in the room looked at each other uneasily, suspicion in their eyes.

Having a leader was supposed to bring them together, Louis thought, but here they were, still in fragments, kept apart by mistrust. _Its my fault, if I'm the killer,_  he told himself. _And it's my fault, anyway, because I told Aiden about me, and now he can use that as a weapon against us all_. One way or another he was bringing danger to his people.

The meeting split up, and the first patrols went on their way. Jay, paired with one of the girls who used to clean at the inn, was on the first shift. So was Tomas; his partner was Bucky. Louis and Willem weren't to go out until one. Willem said he'd come back later.

Louis stood outside and exchanged small talk as the pack dispersed. "Don't see you much lately, Louis. Come for dinner some night."

"Hey, why don't you run with us sometime?"

"Givin' your mother competition in the looks department nowadays, babe."

"Are you eating all right, darling? You look pale."

He gave meaningless, noncommittal answers, suppressing the urge to embrace each person and beg forgiveness. What if they died because of him?

  
Finally they were all gone -- all except Astrid and Zayn, who leaned against a garden wall across the street and groped at each other shamelessly.

Louis turned away in disgust and saw someone coming -- a male. Had one of the pack forgotten something? He inhaled sharply. It was Peter Quincey. Why was Aiden's best friend walking down his street?


	26. twenty-six

Peter Quincey stopped short when he saw Louis on the path.

"You were looking for me, Quince?" Louis asked, trying to sound casual. There was no sign of his usual easy grin, and he felt a pang of regret that he could no longer smile at him.

"Yeah. I mean, no," he said. "I was gonna put this note through the door." He held up an envelope in his right hand.

"From Aiden?" Hope fluttered through him like birds' wings.

"Yeah. God knows why." His caustic tone pained Louis.

He thrust the note at him, and he snatched it away. He tore open the envelope and read greedily. It was an invitation to meet Aiden that night at the rocks down by the river. "Be there at two A.M." he wrote. He would have cheered but for the words at the end: "For the sake of what we used to have, I hope you'll come." _Used to have,_  he thought bitterly.

"He can stick his note up his ass," he said, and shoved the letter at Quince's face.

Quince grabbed it in self-defense, tottering back a step, and he was rudely pleased to see him look ungainly. "You know, I liked you at first," he said, "but you're a real two-faced bitch." He crammed the letter into the pocket of his baggy shorts and retreated down the sidewalk.

Louis yelped a humorless laugh. He was too witless to know the truth of his words.

Across the street Astrid and Zayn now stared his way with mocking leers on their faces. He gave them the finger before he went inside.

In his room, he brooded over the letter. What if he hadn't meant it to sound so final? Perhaps he really wanted to make up. No. He was sure Aiden only wanted to see him so he could repeat that it was all over and demand that he stay away from Kelly. He was damned if he would meet him to be demeaned by that crap. But if that was all he wanted to say, why send Quince with a note? Why meet him at two in the morning in a deserted place?

Then he remembered what Harry had said would happen if Aiden knew what he was -- "I swear to the Moon, he'll try to kill you." _It's not possible_ , he thought. Aiden wasn't capable of murder. Or was he, if he believed it was what he was obliged to do?  _I don't want to find out_ , he thought.

But what if he didn't meet him? Would Aiden do, stalk him? Would he discover the pack's secret? How long before he persuaded others of the truth? He knew it was possible for others to believe; he'd seen his last home burn.

 _I'm the weak link_ , he thought. _I'm a danger to my people. I need to be removed._

He could run away. But where to? The idea of being alone chilled him. _And what if I continue to kill?_  he thought. _Each time I kill I take the risk of being caught. And if I'm caught they might trace my family._

One thing he was sure of: He couldn't stand the shame of a trial by his own people. He couldn't turn himself in to the pack.

There was only one real answer, of course -- to protect his family, his pack. He would have to kill himself. The breath seemed to leave his body for a moment. Time stood still. That was the answer. It was so sparkling clear that it hurt like ice water and left his brain cold, numb, and awake. But how did a werewolf kill himself? _Silver bullets,_ he thought, and snorted. Sure, those were always lying around the house. He stood at the window and inhaled the perfume of his last night. _It must be fast,_  he thought -- he  
must find a way that left no time to chicken out -- and it had to either sever his spine or do so much damage s he couldn't use his metamorph powers to heal.

Hanging was an option, but you had to do it right so the fall broke your neck; if not, you just strangled. Strangling was painful and didn't kill. The same applied to jumping from a tall building -- you couldn't be sure you would do enough damage to die. He could lie with his head on the railroad tracks, maybe, but only freight trains ran at night, and they moved so slowly he would chicken out for sure.

Finally the perfect, fail-safe solution came to him. There was a can of gasoline for the lawn mower in the garage. There were matches in the kitchen. He thought of the inn going up in flames, his father trapped within. Fire -- a family tradition. It seemed so right.

As he went downstairs a flash of fear shot through him, but he smothered it with the certainty of duty. He hadn't died in the fire that had taken his father's life. He should have. This would set things straight.

In the kitchen he scribbled a note. He wanted it clear he was dead, and why. He didn't want Jay searching uselessly for him, deluded by false hope. The quicker Jay accepted his daughter's death, the quicker she could get on with her life. This new lover seemed like he might stick around. That would help.

_I am the killer. I don't remember doing it but it had to be me. I don't know what made me go crazy. It wasn't your fault. Now I'm killing myself to make you safe. I'm sorry. I love you._

Louis felt funny writing "I love you" -- they didn't talk to each other that way -- but this was his last chance. He put the note on the table under Jay's favorite mug.

Louis collected the gas and matches and left by the back door. He walked through the woods to the river mechanically, the can banging against his thigh. Twigs snapped, crickets scuttled from his tread, and a night bird gave an occasional soft cry. The noises were crisp but unreal, like the sound track of a movie. He felt as if a stranger stalked through the trees in his body.

He followed the river in the direction of the city. He didn't want to give the police a clue to who he was or where he lived. He didn't stop until he came to a spur of woods that grew far out into the river meadow. Within was a small ruined building, part of some Sanitary Commission station at one time.

He climbed inside the shell of stone and looked around. Beer cans and trash littered the place, and a soiled red baseball cap lay crumpled in a corner. There was an odor of urine. He guessed people would steer clear of this place for a while after tonight. A small grim smile twitched his lips. Maybe they'd even think it haunted.

 _Get it over with_ , he told himself, and ignored the cold tingle of dread the words evoked. First he kicked what he could of the trash into a pile in the middle of the room and placed the matches out of the way, on a tumble of bricks, to keep them dry. When he tried to unscrew the cap of the gas can, however, he found he had no strength. _This is stupid, so stupid,_  he thought as he groped and strained with trembling hands. He clenched his teeth and forced his fingers to grip. The cap turned with a crunch and an acrid smell laced the night.

Louis raised the can to douse his front and gasped with the sudden cold. The fumes he inhaled made him sneeze again and again. he wanted to throw the can to the ground and run, but he forced himself to stay. When his eyes cleared he tipped the can over his back and lifted it high to wet his hair. He poured the remainder of the gas into the trash at his feet.

 _This won't hurt for long,_ he told himself as he reached for the matches, and hoped like hell he told himself the truth. He thought of a Viking funeral: a dragon ship blazing in glory drifting to sea. It helped a little. "I'm sorry, everyone," he whispered. "But you're better off without me."

The sulfur head crumbled against the strike plate; the match wouldn't light.

"Can't I do anything right?" he cried. He threw the match aside, and fumbled for another with fingers grown thick and useless.

"Louis!" He looked up to see a boy and a dog come over the wall. Not a dog. The shape bubbled and stretched and turned into Willem.

"Shit man!" He held his nose.

"Louis," Niall cried again. "It wasn't you." His face was streaked with tears. Louis stared at him stupidly long enough for Willem to snatch the matches from him. Liam stepped over one of the lower walls.

"Is he coming?" Willem asked.

"Yeah," Liam said.

Then Harry was there. "Oh, baby," Harry said gently, wiping the sodden hair back from Louis' face. "You need a bath."


	27. twenty-seven

Louis' knees gave way, but Harry caught him before he fell and swept him into his arms. "It's all right now, it's all right," he whispered against Louis' bedraggled hair as he carried him down to the river. He crushed himself against Harry's chest to stop the trembling, and when he lowered Louis gently into the river he was reluctant to let go. But he slid from his grasp to strip off his ruined clothes, then submerged himself in the tepid water.

"What does Niall mean, it wasn't me?" he asked as he emerged dripping from the river. Liam handed him his T-shirt. It came to his knees.

"Tell them," Willem ordered, his hand on Niall's shoulder.

Niall lowered his eyes and bit his lip. "Astrid came home with a meat-boy tonight," he said in his quiet, high-pitched voice. "Her and Zayn. They thought I was out but I went back for my sleeping bag and some comic books, and got sidetracked reading an old Sandman. Then I heard Mom come home with Zayn making a bunch of noise. I thought they were drunk and I ignored them until I heard a cry. I looked out my door and saw them kill him."

Harry cursed, and Niall backed up the riverbank. "Its okay, little brother," Harry said. "I'll not bite."

 _Oh, sweet Moon_ , Louis thought. _I almost killed myself for nothing_.

"They didn't see me," Niall continued, watching Harry warily. "I left while they were rolling him up in the carpet they'd done him on. I climbed out the window and went over to Willem's."

"He wouldn't tell me what was wrong at first," Willem said. "But you know Niall, it was obvious something was."

"How could I turn in my mother?" Niall wailed.

Willem put his arm around the smaller boy. "I brought him to you, Louis. I thought you'd know what to do. But then I found your note."

"He called me," Harry continued impatiently. "I left Finn in charge and came with Liam as fast as I could. Willem had already followed your trail. I followed his."

Sweet Moon, did he think Louis a coward? He couldn't let Harry think that. "I was doing it for the pack," he said. "To protect them from me."

Harry's dark brows knit into a frown. "But why did you think the killer was you?" he asked. He folded his arms and waited for some sense out of him.

It was Zayn who had said Louis'd been heading for Tooleys that night, and Zayn had given him the booze --Zayn who despised him and now consorted with Astrid, who hated her, too. "Niall," he said. "Did they say anything about setting me up?"

Niall swallowed. "No. They just went through his pockets. Mom found some letter on him. When she read it she laughed."

Dread buzzed in Louis' chest like an evil black fly. "What did it say?" he demanded.

Niall flinched. "I don't know. But after Zayn read it he said, 'I'd rather be there at two o'clock.'"

"Quince," Louis squeaked, and covered his mouth.

Harry took his arm. "Was he your boyfriend? The one you wanted to make jealous?"

"No. His friend." Tears blinded him. "He brought me a message from Aiden. Astrid and Zayn were across the street when we talked. They must have followed him." Sudden panic gripped Louis. "What time is it?"

Liam looked at his watch. "One-forty-five."

"They're going to meet Aiden." He turned to Harry. "You've got to stop them. Please. Go after them."

"Where?" he asked. "The rocks by the river behind my house."

"Liam, get back to my place and tell Finn," Harry said. "See how many pack members you can find. Willem, you and Niall see who's still at Tooley's. We'll need some strong teeth tonight. I'm calling a Judgment." The boys took off.

"Louis, you get that kid out of there before Astrid shows up. I'll round up whoevers at your house, then I'll be right behind you in time to meet Astrid."

"No," cried Louis. "I can't go."

Harry stopped in his tracks. "Why, for the Moon's sake?"

"He's frightened of me," Louis said. "He won't listen to me."

"You told him," Harry said. His tone was resigned, as if he'd already guessed.

He nodded miserably. "But only about me, no one else," he explained in a rush. Sweet Moon, he hadn't signed his death warrant, had he?

Harry took a deep breath. "Not good, but not the worst of our problems right now. We can't risk another body showing up in our territory, especially if there are others who know that he was meeting you. Chase him out of there if you have to."

An ache swelled in Louis' throat. "But what if he's going there to kill me?"

"If you don't, he may be the one to die. Do you want that, Louis? You wanted him as a mate, remember. We don't abandon our mates."

 _He abandoned me_ , he cried inside. But Harry was right. He owed Aiden help. His life was in danger because of Louis.

"Come on," he said. "We're wasting time."

They raced up the river side by side, their backs to the tardy moon, and Louis wished he could lope on all fours, but if Aiden saw him in fur it would terrify him. When the rocks rose ahead, their paths diverged, and Harry sped to Louis' house. It was then he saw two shapes, close to the ground, come coursing down the meadow. Even in moonlight he could tell that one was foxy red.

A ripple flowed through him, but he forced his limbs to stay straight, although every molecule screamed that the best way to protect Aiden was to change. The effort gave him cramps, and the sweat of panic broke on his brow. He skidded around the rocks on loose scree. There he was, crouched in the rubble.

Aiden leaped to his feet as he ran toward him, his face etched sharply in the light of the moon.

Louis reached for him. "We've got to get out of here." He jerked out of her grasp. "Come on," he pleaded. "I can't explain now." A twitch in his back and a stab of nausea made him stagger; maybe he'd have to chase Aiden after all.

"Don't touch me," he cried, and brought up his arms. He aimed a gun at Louis with both hands like a cop on TV. He would shoot, he knew by the look on his face.

"Oh, Aiden." Louis' words were a broken sigh.

"I've come to release you from your torment," he said.


	28. twenty-eight

"I've got a silver bullet," Aiden said, and the gun trembled slightly. "I made it myself with my dad's equipment."

"Out of what, the best knives and forks?" Louis' derision was hollow. He remembered the silver crucifix in his room, and his father's gun collection.

He looked surprised that he had questioned him. "I made it out of stuff I had, like the necklace you threw back at me."

Blood rushed to Louis' face; the necklace at Kelly's wasn't hers. But this was worse. He had saved his love gift to kill him with. He shivered. "Only one bullet?" he asked.

"That's for me to know." His dark eyes were glassy with fear in the moonlight.  
"Well, you'd better have more," he told him, "because the real killers will be here any second." _Poor Aiden,_  he thought. _He hates guns._

"Stop lying, please," he said, the sadness in his voice matching the way Louis felt. "The killer could only be you."

Astrids shrill laughter pierced the night. "Are you sure?" She walked around the rocks. Horror bloomed in Aiden's eyes as he saw her, half changed, her ears pointed, her breasts emerging from a smooth red pelt. She had abandoned her patch, and a knot of scar tissue marred her face where her right eye had been. Aiden's gun wavered and switched to the new target.

"Can I join the party?" Zayn's voice came from behind Louis, and he whirled to face him. His hair was a shaggy mane down his naked back, his nails were talons, and his eyes glowed red.

Aiden swung the gun toward Zayn. Panic distorted his face. Louis backed up until he was at Aiden's side. "Do you believe me now?"

His "yes" came out a squeak, but despite his fear, Aiden stood his ground, slowly moving his gun in an arc between Astrid and Zayn.

"Playing with guns are we?" said Astrid. "You know bullets can't harm us, meat-boy." Either she hadn't heard Aiden say he had a silver bullet or she didn't believe him.

"If you leave now, Louis, you won't have to see him suffer," Astrid offered.

"You get out of here," Louis growled. "I won't let you hurt him."

Astrid grinned maliciously. "Oh? And it's up to you, is it?"

"Come on, Lou, he's nothing to you," Zayn said. "The stupid little creep was gonna shoot you."

"Oh, but he is something to you, isn't he?" said Astrid. "That's why I shall take such pleasure in killing him."

"Try it," Aiden managed to say. He didn't sound convincing.

"If you can't get off two shots fast, don't do it," Louis whispered.

"He knows who we are now, Louis. He's got to die," Zayn taunted.

Louis' talons slid in and out, and his teeth ached with the urge to grow. A tail writhed invisibly in his back like a worm. Couldn't he control himself? Was he truly just an animal? But he dared not change. Aiden was as likely to shoot him as them if he did. _Where the hell is Harry?_ Louis thought. Louis would have to stall. "Why did you set me up?" he asked.

"Clever Louis. You figured it out," Astrid answered. "Give the girl a hand, Zayn. Oh, but you already did, didn't you?" She shrieked with laughter.

"It was a joke, Lou," Zayn said. "You were being such a pain, acting like a meat-girl. We would have told you."

Louis noticed the scornful look Astrid shot Zayn. "Why did you really set me up, Astrid?"

"Because I hate you," Astrid spat. "And I think I'll kill you, too. Oh, dear," she continued in a singsong voice. "We came upon her slaughtering the boy and had to stop her. She must have been the rogue."

"And how will you explain the deaths that keep happening after I'm gone?" Louis said. "You don't think she's going to stop, do you Zayn? She's crazy. Can't you see that?"

"Hey, come on," Zayn said, starting to look worried. "It's a joke, right?"

"You're such a tool, Zayn," Louis said. That wiped the grin off his face.

"Not satisfied with one lover, are you?" Astrid snarled. "You took Harry from me but you want to keep the boy as well." Her words surprised Zayn. "Louis didn't take Harry from you."

"I could have had Harry if it wasn't for him."

"But he didn't want you," Zayn said, hurt and rage in his voice. He no longer faced Louis and Aiden.

"I would have changed his mind," Astrid answered, turning on Zayn.

Louis couldn't believe his luck. "But you've got me now. Why should it matter?" Zayn cried.

He had to trust Aiden's common sense or they both would die. "Shoot him. I'll take her." He yanked off his T-shirt and ran.

The change ripped through him. He leaped into the air as a boy but came down creature, and heard a shot and begged it wasn't for him. He slammed into Astrid's chest. His teeth found Astrid's throat.

Astrid made the full change as they hit the dirt, and she writhed and bucked as she tried to toss Louis off. Louis couldn't breathe with Astrid's fur in his nose, but he wouldn't let go. Astrid's back claws scrabbled at Louis' belly, but Louis flipped the red wolf onto her side and bore her down. The taste of blood exploded in Louis' mouth. _Frighten me, would you, bitch?_  he raved inside. _Make me think I'm out of control? I'll show you out of control._ He realized the rumbling in his head was the sound of his own growling rage. Then suddenly he was shaken like a rag and discovered himself in the air. The shock half changed him back to human form.

"The Law is mine to mete out," thundered Harry. "But good work," he whispered, setting him on his feet.

"Where the hell were you?" he rasped.

"Removing a carpet from your front porch," Harry answered. _Astrid's tricks again,_  he thought, and saw the culprit, now also in semi-human form, restrained by Rudy  
and Tomas, while she coughed and struggled weakly. Zayn lay in a still heap on the ground. He was in his skin, so probably dead. _Great Moon_ , t _he kid can shoot after all_ , he thought and shuddered. His eyes searched out Aiden.

Aiden looked around wildly as, one by one, others of the pack made themselves known and formed a semicircle on the riverbank. Some were in skin and some were in fur, others were in between; eyes blazed red, golden, and green in the light of the sinking moon. Louis saw Jay. Orlando Griffin and Persia Devereux were there.

"You have condemned yourself with your own words," said Harry to Astrid as he approached her. "You killed humans for the joy of it. You deliberately endangered the pack and tormented one of your own." He stood in front of her now. "You will always be a danger to us. We have no prisons, we have no jailors. This is the only sentence."

He swiftly reached out with both hands and snapped Astrid's neck. She fell to the ground and kicked a few times, they lay still.

As Harry turned from the corpse Louis saw pain in his eyes, not pleasure, and he understood the burden Harry took on as leader. But his lips tightened and determination veiled his sorrow. "This is the Law," he cried.

"This is the Law," came the shout from all. Those in fur set up a howl. The others joined in. Niall was crying into his fists, and Willem and Finn on four legs nudged in close to comfort him.

Harry called for silence. A full howling wasn't wise in this place.

 _Aiden!_ Louis realized he had forgotten him. He crouched on the ground, retching. "It's okay now," he told him gently. "You can go."

Harry came closer, offering his hand. Aiden flinched and raised his arm. He still held the gun.

"No!" Louis cried. "He's letting you go." He stepped in front of Harry as the shot exploded. A force in his chest knocked him backward. A dark shape flew past him. There were millions of stars in the sky. Somewhere far off Jay screamed.

"Stay back. I have him," Harry ordered.

he felt hands upon him, but he couldn't see. He smelled Jay's Paris perfume, and the powdery scent of old woman was everywhere. Aunt Persia ordered Bucky to run for her bag.

"Look at what you've done," said Harry, and Louis' vision cleared as if his eyes craved the sight of him. He saw Aiden over him, Harry gripping his arms. Tears ran down Aiden's face.

"You have shot the only one here who cares about you," Harry said, and his fangs had grown.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Aiden whispered. "I didn't mean to hit you. I thought I could kill you when I came here, but when I saw you I knew I couldn't. Now I've done it anyway."

"No one's dead yet, boy," snapped Aunt Persia. It took all the energy Louis had to speak.

"Let him go," he said.

A flicker of tenderness crossed Harry's face. "For you," he answered. "Boy," he said harshly. "There are more of us than you will ever know. If you breathe a word of this, it will get back to me. There is nowhere you will be safe."

Aiden looked around the assembled pack, his eyes stricken and huge. He nodded, unable to talk. His world had changed. Now shadows would always take on threatening shapes. What had Louis done? Oh, poor, poor boy. He was indeed a monster. He had made him unsafe forever.

"Make a path," Harry ordered. He released Aiden's arms. Aiden took a step, then paused. "Please," he said in a small voice. "Let me know how Louis is."

"If he dies you will know," Harry growled. Aiden took off running.

"Louis, my darling," said Aunt Persia. "It would help me if you took on one form or the other." Louis gathered that inner force he couldn't name and tried the secret squeeze. _Wolf,_  he thought, naming his animal shape with its imperfect name, but nausea ripped through him. The thought of his fur form disgusted him. Human then. He tried again, but nothing happened. He tried again and again and again.

 _I can't change,_ he thought, his horror rising. _I can't change._ He was stuck in between.


	29. twenty-nine

**SEPTEMBER**

Harvest Moon

Louis held a brush in his clawed hand and swept fat strokes across the mural, obliterating the forest and the wolves on his bedroom wall with patchy white paint. _This is no longer mine,_  he thought. _It hasn't been mine for a long, long time. It will never be mine again._

He hadn't been out of the house for more than two and a half weeks, he barely spoke to his family, and whenever Harry visited he retreated to his room. Why would he want to see Louis now?

Aunt Persia had come by twice with herbal potions she had concocted. Nothing worked. "It's up to you now," she had said. In other words, it was useless. Over and over again Louis had clenched his muscles and willed himself to change one way or the other, but he was like a rusty lock stuck in between -- no matter how hard he forced, the key would move neither forward nor back. The full moon had come and gone, and he had stayed the same -- immutable, unchanging, frozen.

 _It's all my fault,_ he thought as he roughly wiped a furred arm across his forehead, pushing up the sleeve of his loose silk robe. _I tried to be what I wasnt, and now I can't even be what I should. I'm a freak._

He splattered the paint in a sudden arc of anger. "A freak! A freak! A freak!" he screamed. And because of him an innocent boy was dead.

The newspapers had already forgotten Peter Quincey, but police cruisers still crawled the neighborhood at triple the usual frequency, concerned civic groups met at the high school, and kids were told to be off the streets by eleven o'clock. No one was sure a detective wouldn't show up on their doorstep. The whole pack was relieved at the news that Harry had approved the purchase of a property in Vermont. The parcel included an inn and land right next to the Green Mountain National Forest. They could go back to the family business and be isolated enough to run free. In a week or so Harry was going up to sign the papers. They could make plans. They could think of the future.

"The future." Sputum shot between Louis' fangs and joined the paint on the wall. What future did he have? _I'm not going,_  he decided. How long would the pack be kind to him? What would he be but an ugly reminder of their year in the suburbs? And how could he bear to pretend to live a normal life when he could never run with the pack again? He belonged with the freaks in a carnival, but he'd stay here, in this room, hidden.

There was a scratching out back and one of his tufted ears tilted in the direction of the window. _Damn them_ , he thought. Willem and the others had spent many a night on the porch roof outside his window. They refused to let him be alone. "We're still the Five, Boo," Willem had said. "Yeah, you're one of us," Finn had agreed. If the night had been cooler he could have closed the window and ignored them, but he didn't feel like suffocating just to spite them.

He pulled his robe closed and slouched to the window, as erect as his spine would allow. Sure enough Willem, Liam, and Niall swarmed onto the roof. Finn dropped from the branches of the oak with a soft thud. Behind them heat lightning flashed in the purple sky, drowning the stars. As usual, the guys were naked and half changed. "It's the latest style," Willem had said when he'd complained. "All the best people are wearing it." Once more he silently thanked the unknown landscaper who had planted trees that sheltered the roof from both sun and prying eyes.

"We've got another one for you," Willem. said. Louis snorted. They were going through everyone's music collections looking for werewolf songs. To inspire him, Finn said, although he suspected it was for his own amusement. Last night they had sung "Moon over Bourbon Street" by someone called Sting. Their singing was hideous. The night before, while they were performing "Werewolves of London," Jay had threatened to turn the hose on them, if she could only stop laughing.

Jay was much too happy nowadays, since Tomas had moved in with them. Louis had tried to spoil it by pointing out how he had run when the police came calling. Jay had just giggled. "He's a lover, not a fighter," she said. _My mother should be worried about me, not drooling over a boyfriend,_ Louis thought, forgetting the number of times Jay had come tapping at his bedroom door only to be shunned.

Liam announced this evenings selection, "No One Lives Forever," by Oingo Boingo. Louis rolled his blue eyes and hoped that whoever had donated the CD had been forced to listen to them practice. He turned her back on them, but his rejection didn't make them hesitate.

Even Niall joined in these serenades, although he talked even less than usual nowadays. Harry had taken him in, according to Liam, who had looked envious as he told Louis.

"Yeah, calls him little brother," Finn had mocked, but Louis had seen a rare, fleeting smile on Niall's face.

"Ass kisser," Liam had accused affectionately, spitting at Niall. Everyone was happy except Louis.

"Come on, Boo," Willem called through the window, startling him. "Come for a run in the woods." He hadn't even realized that the song was over.

"No," he answered without turning to face him. "And you wouldn't stay out after curfew if you were smart." He heard his sigh.

The boys left the roof quietly.

Downstairs the front door slammed and Jay's laughter floated up from below. After a brief pause, Louis heard the cadence of Jay's steps up the stairs and then the predictable knock at hs bedroom door.

"Louis, honey?" Jays voice was tentative. "Haven't you been downstairs today?" Louis didn't answer. He felt mean, but he didn't want to talk. "Louis!" Jay's voice was sharp. "Stop being a jerk. So what if you're stuck. Deal with it."

"That's easy for you to say," Louis shot back.

"Oh, baby." Jay sounded contrite. "We'll soon be up in Vermont. It'll be better there. You'll be able to get more fresh air."

"Instead of being 'the secret in the upstairs room,' you mean?"

"Oh, have it your own way," Jay snapped, and Louis heard her retreat downstairs. A tapping on his window frame made him start. _What do they want now?_  he thought angrily, and turned to tell the boys to get lost. Harry stood outside. He ran to the window and tried to close it, but with one hand and little effort he stopped Lous.

His eyes were dark stars, his expression unreadable. "Once upon a time," he said in a voice that was velvet thunder, "I killed the girl I loved."


	30. thirty

Louis backed away from the window, afraid to take his eyes from Harry's face.

He ripped out what was left of the screen with one fierce yank. "I've never told anyone before, but I've come to tell you." He climbed into Louis' room.

"Say what you came to say," Louis demanded, his heart pounding. The faster he did the faster he would leave.

Harry looked around and stroked his lower lip thoughtfully with his thumb. He sat on Louis' bed. The springs creaked in protest as he propped himself up against his pillows and stretched out his legs. He was too large for Louis' room; his occupation of his bed too intimate. Louis pulled the neck of his robe closer together.

"When I was first out in the world," he said, "I met a dancer in a bar. She was out of place there -- too educated, too sensitive -- but she had fallen on hard times. She needed someone to protect her from the guys who came on too strong. I loved to watch her dance. She was lithe and beautiful, but there was something fragile about her because, of course, she couldn't change. Just looking at her made me feel large and powerful. This excited me."

Louis lowered himself into her desk chair. This story annoyed him.

"I couldn't keep away from the bar," Harry said. "The girl became my obsession. I would have done anything for her. I was surprised at how quickly I won her, because I thought she was too good for me. We became lovers and I was the happiest I had ever been. She was gentle and enthusiastic, and I believed I satisfied her, but there was always something missing for me. That feeling tormented me but I couldn't put my finger on the cause."

Louis remembered how Aiden was always still kissing when he wanted him to bite. "I don't want to hear this," he interrupted, blushing.

Harry gave a short, humorless laugh. "No doubt you don't, but you will." Louis sighed and shut up. Harry continued. "I found, however, that if I changed only the tiniest bit while we made love I had more pleasure. I thought that perhaps I felt guilty for keeping the truth of what I was from the woman I loved, and that by changing I was being more honest without actually telling her. But it became harder and harder for me not to change all the way when we were in bed together."

Up to now, Harry had stared straight at Louis with a solemn intensity, but now his gaze went beyond him as if looking into the past.

"Then, one night, I went too far and I couldn't turn back." The muscles in his arms tightened and bulged as he clutched the sheets. His voice became harsh. "In the midst of a kiss, she pulled away from me and cried in terror. It was unbearable. I should have understood her fear but logic had fled. Here was my true self and she hated me. I was ashamed to scare her, crushed and angry that she rejected me. I shook her while I still had arms. 'It's only me,' I cried. 'I love you.' But my mouth had lost the shape for speech. She screamed and called me a filthy beast. Her words ripped me to the soul. The room flamed red. I hit her."

Harry closed his eyes. "One of our own could have taken that blow." Louis watched the rise and fall of his chest as he struggled for control. Without realizing what he did, he rose and went to him.

When he opened his eyes and looked up at Louis, he appeared much younger than he had before. _He's only twenty-four_ , Louis remembered. It was his self-assurance that made him seem much older.

"I didn't mean to kill her," Harry said. His voice cracked.

Louis recalled the fear on Aiden's face, and the despair he'd felt. Louis sank to the bed beside Harry. "I know, I know." He took him into his arms. If he hadn't jumped out the window, he could have killed Aiden.

Harry held on to him, his head on Louis' shoulder. "I fled from that town, and I lived for months like a stray. I was ashamed to take on human form again." They were quiet for a long time as he stroked his hair. Finally he sighed. "Thank you."

"You could have warned me," Louis muttered.

"Would you have listened? " he asked.

"No."

Harry kissed his neck slowly and deliberately. He jerked away. How could Harry bear to kiss him when he looked the way he did?

He must have guessed her thoughts. "Louis, you are beautiful in anything you wear." He blushed.

"Why would we even be attracted to one of them?" Louis asked.

"Lots of reasons," Harry said absently as he gazed longingly at Louis' lips. "They look like us, at least what we look like sometimes, and when you're lonely -- "

"But they're not like us," Louis broke in.

"They can't change," Harry said, abandoning Louis' lips in favor of his eyes. "But I do believe they have a beast within. In some it's buried so deep they'll never feel it; in others it stirs, and if a person can't give it a safe voice it warps and rots and breaks out in evil ways. They may not be able to change, but they still can be the beast of their own nightmares. It's our blessing that we can exorcise those demons. Sometimes it's our curse."

"You've thought about this a lot," Louis said. He'd taken Harry for all action, orders, arrogance. He reached for Louis' hand. This time he didn't pull away.

"But they can't love us," Louis said. "Not when they know what we are. What's that legend? A werewolf can be killed by a silver bullet fired by someone who loves him. I guess Aiden didn't love me. I didn't die."

Harry squeezed his hand. "Silly boy. He didn't love Zayn, and Zayn is sure as hell dead. His aim wasn't as good when he hit you, and we got the bullet out in time before it poisoned you."

"Did you? Then why am I stuck?"

He tugged Louis to him and caught him in his arms. "You don't understand, do you?"

"Understand what?" Louis asked, struggling unsuccessfully to get away.

"It's your choice," Harry said, nuzzling his ear. "You're doing it to yourself. If you want to, you can make the change. Relax. Let go."

"No, I can't," he said, panic trembling in his voice.

"Yes, you can," he insisted huskily. "And I know-how to help you." His lips descended on his. He was surprised by the intensity of Harry's kiss. It sent a swift pang through him, and he yielded up his mouth without thinking. Harry tasted him thoroughly, their tongues caressing, demanding that Louis respond, and he found himself hands tangled in Harry's hair, refusing to let him stop, his nose filled with the spicy dark smell of him.

This was the kiss he had craved. The kiss that Aiden couldn't give him. Harry bit Louis' lip, and he gasped and captured Harry's mouth again. He was raw and sharp and rich and throbbing with life. He was sweet blood after a long hunt. How could Louis have mistaken Aiden's kisses for this? They had been delicious and smooth like the brief comfort of chocolate, but they had never been enough.

Harry pulled Louis over his body to lie on the bed beside him. His kisses pressed Louis down into the oblivion of the mattress as his hands explored his chest, his shoulders, his face.

"I want to lay my kill at your feet," he said, more groan than words, and held Louis tight by his hair as he marked his neck with teeth.

Louis writhed against him. He wanted to bite him, He wanted to rip the flesh from his back, but most terrible of all, he didn't want him to stop. Louis' back arched, his body shattered, he howled. Harry flung himself away. Louis struggled in a tangle of sheets and robe, floundering, and fell off the bed on all fours.

He let out a yelp of astonishment, then turned in circles trying to look at himself.

Harry sat there laughing. His hair had grown shaggy, the teeth he showed were feral. He smelled wonderful.

"Louis," he said, a rasp in his deep voice. "When we love someone we want our lover as mate in both our skin and our fur. We couldn't do anything but reveal ourselves to our human choices."

Louis trembled. What if his change was only one way? The bile of fear rose in his gullet. He had to prove that he was truly unstuck. Screwing his eyes tight, he claimed his human form again -- and it was so easy like breathing. He staggered slightly with the excess effort.

"It was only a matter of time," Louis said, not wanting Harry to be right, yet wanting him. Harry smiled at Louis tenderly. "No. I think that you've just proved that you'll have me." He reached for him and kissed him again, his claws tracing lines down Louis' back, and his legs turned to liquid, and this time it wasn't from the change.

"Why me?" Louis asked, holding on to him.

"Because you cared," he whispered. "You cared so much for your people, it broke your heart to see the pack in ruins. You cared so much for your mother, you risked your life for hers. You cared enough to save someone who wanted you dead. And because you walk like a queen. And just because of the beautiful curve of your back."

Harry pulled off his shirt. He tossed it behind him. "Come out with me beneath the stars," he said.

If Louis left with him now, his world would be changed forever. He would be bound by duty for life, like his father.

 _Like my father,_ he thought, then realized, _This is what I owe him. This is how I make it up to him._

"Don't wag your tail yet, wolfman," he said to cover his fear and desire. "You've bitten off more bunny than you can chew."

Louis followed him to the window, the blood singing in his veins.

[end]


End file.
